Parents' Guide to T.I.M.

Writer-director Spencer Brown's feature film debut almost makes up in looks and atmosphere what it lacks in originality, but the story never quite comes to full life. T.I.M. follows a familiar formula: humanlike AI learns too much, becomes too human, gets a little creepy, then turns on the very humans it's supposed to serve. The film brings the paranoia home by tying in things that are already happening -- giving certain programs access to credit cards, passwords, metabolic data, thoughts, and desires -- and takes it just a step further to show the dangers of giving away our privacy and control to things most of us don't fully understand. Eamon Farren offers a solid performance that moves from robotic to sinister in the twitch of an eye -- even small moments of violence making a strong impact compared to the slow, controlled movements elsewhere -- and the high-tech home itself feels claustrophobic, labyrinthine, and ominous. But the plot is fairly predictable from the get-go, with no great moments of impact beyond the suddenness of some of the violence, which will likely surprise viewers as much as it does the characters caught in its iron-clad grasp.