On paper, Zoe Kravitz in a techno thriller directed by Steven Soderbergh sounds like a can’t miss. And while both of them do their jobs well in “Kimi”, the story suffers from an unneeded lag in pacing as it tries to meet its brief running time.
Kravitz plays Angela Childs, a techno worker in an Amazon-like empire who deciphers messages picked up on home smart speakers. Instead of Alexa, we have Kimi. When a Kimi device records a crime, Angela must get to the FBI while trying to battle her homicidal employers and psychological agoraphobic fears.
The film looks good. And Kravitz gives us a strong performance. If you’ve never watched the soon to be Catwoman before, she’s a talented actress, and she gives us a 100% here. It’s almost like a modernization of Sandra Bullock’s “The Net” from so long ago.
As for the rest of the cast, they’re not very good. Rita Wilson is wasted in a minor role, and everyone else is completely forgettable. It’s also not a very complicated story, which sometimes works well in a film, but really this could have been a 45 minute episode of a CBS drama. It’s got the same bones.
At a very brief 89 minutes, it’s not a terrible way to spend a Saturday afternoon, but I would have liked to have seen “Kimi” produced with some more fleshed out characters and plot lines to keep the action going easier.
Kimi
Grade: C-
Rated R
Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes