TxMike I came across this movie on Netflix streaming movies. At about 90 minutes long it is just right. Set in the future when robots are fairly common, filmed mostly in the mountains of Switzerland in the winter, a snowy village in a valley surrounded by mountains. The language is Spanish with English subtitles.I really like this movie, it is about family and friends more than about robots. But the lead billing goes to Daniel Brühl as Alex Garel, a very creative robot designer who left a project unfinished some 10 years earlier. Now he has returned to the town and to the institute, finding his former girlfriend married to his brother, but he has not lost his feelings for her.The couple has a child, young Spanish actress Claudia Vega as Eva. The title of the movie is "Eva" so we know it will be about her. Alex first encounters her when he is looking for a bright, curious child to model his new project after, to give this new robot a mind that is interesting. So he asks Eva to help him even before he finds out whose child she is.Yes, the robots are fun to watch, even the robotic cat that follows Alex everywhere. But the story is really about relationships and Alex coming to grips with some issues left undone.SPOILERS FOLLOW: As the story moves forward I began to suspect that Eva was really Alex's child, she looked more like him and had his curiosity. But the bigger surprise is about 20 minutes from the end when Eva falls non-responsive in the snow as her mother is looking for her. She is actually a robot, the project his girlfriend finished after Alex left. Mom revives her with a new power cell but when Eva discovers she really is a robot she pushes her mom who then slides down and falls maybe 100 feet into the snow below. She dies in the hospital, Alex is left to care for Eva and decides she cannot continue on, so he says the code for all robots, "What do you see when you close your eyes?" and she falls non-responsive.

Kike Orellana In his debut feature film director Kike Maillo went out on a limb when he chose to make a film set in Spain in the not-so-distant- future about the moral dilemmas of artificial intelligence. Spanish sci-fi? Sounds risky but why not? We're getting a new robot-themed film each month now: Chappie, Big Hero 6, Ex-Machina, Age of Ultron, Elysium to name a few of the most recent. So why not a Spanish robot film for a change? The world "Eva" is set in is indeed intriguing. It is set in an idyllic alpine village so perfect it looks like we're peering inside a souvenir snow globe. People drive around in 1970's SAABs, wear wool sweaters, unwind in pubs with cozy fireplaces and go ice skating every afternoon. The only signs that you are in the future is that there are robots everywhere politely and discretely doing secretarial and house cleaning jobs. There are no drones, no self- driving cars, and no robo-cops (Spain should be optimistic of its future apparently). Robots are either doing menial labor, or, apparently, have been geared towards emotional gratification and the companionship of their creators. Our protagonist, Alex (Daniel Brühl) is a robotics software developer who is hired to go after the holy grail of robotics: building a prototype of a robot child that is both realistic (that is, spontaneous) as well as safe (that is, predictable). The strength of this film is to show reconciling these two is impossible, and that the essence of being human is precisely that we cannot be both. The secret sauce that makes us human, capable of spontaneity and charm, turns out to be also what makes us irrational, impetuous and dangerous. After masterfully setting up the premise of the film, the actual execution of the plot starts to falter. The protagonist is supposed to be a genius cybernetic engineer, but his character is mostly a drag and a bore to watch. You start wishing that his robot cat had more screen time. The story also hinges on a love triangle that feels contrived and inane. The robot butler is considerably more entertaining and I ended up wishing he somehow played a bigger part in the plot. The core of the story revolves around how Alex tries to model the emotional life of the android child on his niece (fantastically played by Claudia Vega) and it is these interactions that anchor the film and give it substance. The best scenes deal with the "Turing tests" that Bruno develops, trying to tell apart real child from robot child. The last half hour of the film has some twists which ultimately make the entire film seem better than it felt it was while watching. Still, it is not easy to forgive the director for wasting so much time on love triangle sub-plots and creating hollow characters. The film gets seven stars for its elegant cinematography and its smartly framed premise, but doesn't break much new ground.

Zdravko Jandric Well, at the same time- this movie disappointed me, as well as he surprise me... Warm and sad story, but predictable from the early beginning. And here they are, the obvious facts: - Eve is a robot - Probe robot will attack Alex - Alex will show his (love) emotions to his ex-girlfriend, Lana - Brothers will fight and more... Sometimes, reminds me on the "A.I." and "I, Robot", but it's clearly visible that this is European (good) production. The 1th half is good- but the second is a little messy, slow and somehow, too quickly turned to the end.However, this is good movie- but...

G Reagan Watching this reminds me of the Isaac Asimov robot stories because it feels like the world his stories were set in. There's even an allusion to the Asimov laws of robotics by stating that robots have to pass a safety test and the cat is illegal because it has free will. The effects are well done and the interactions look believable. The animation physics are slightly wrong in a couple scenes but nothing major.My main problem with the movie is that there isn't enough character development which makes the motives a little ambiguous. The main plot lines are tied up by the end but there's obviously more going on than is ever told. I get just enough to want to know more and that is frustrating.The sci-fi is light enough that I would probably recommend this to anyone even if they would normally skip anything sci-fi.