Dirtylogy
It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.
Brendon Jones
It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Erica Derrick
By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
If you look past the horror/violence elements from this 12-minute short movie, there really is not that much left. A boy gets a robot as a gift, but after spending some time with it initially, he quickly loses interest and starts mistreating his new pal. The fact that he asked for a new one when old Blinky seems broken shows that the boy definitely had a touch of sadism to his character. He does not simply lose interest and stops caring, he wants to keep humiliating the robot. But revenge is a dish best served cold. In cold metal robot-style here in this short film. The writer and director is Ruairi Robinson from Ireland and he made this one 10 years after his Academy Award nomination. The lead actor is Max Records and he was already a bit of a star when this was made due to his turn in Spike Jonze's "Where the Wild Things Are". There's some drama in here, some horror, some humor even (the scene with the war robots with the actual danger being Blinky), but none of the aspects were really fascinating enough to let me recommend it. However, I did like the early parts with all their fake harmony and music, even if there was something really scary and eerie about the robot from the beginning. All in all, I hoped for more though. Not recommended.
bob the moo
A boy decides he wants a robot companion like the friendly, smiling Blinky™ that he sees on the TV adverts. His parents oblige and he finds himself with a great friend and servant who never tires and always does what he is told. However, while the boy has this friend he has to see his parent's relationship deteriorate in front of him.This short film has a nice air in brooding tension and it builds it pretty well across the film. The main selling point is of course in the area of the visual effects because for a short film these are very well done. Blinky looks convincingly real for the majority of the time, but he also has a nice sense of menace in the way that all dead-eyed staring and smiling things do; he feels wrong even when he is so clearly just a loyal robotic dog of a thing. So on this level it works but the problem is that the narrative moves us too quickly and the further it goes the more blatant it gets. This is seen very quickly as the brooding menace becomes almost comic excess, whether it be the melodramatics of the boy yelling at the robot or final shots. This disappointed me a bit because it felt like the leaps were too big and undercut the nice build up it had mostly done.It does still work for what it is and the visual effects are well worth a look, but at times it appeared much smarter and more subtle that it ultimately turned out to be, and it was hard not to feel like the journey was better than the destination.
Red-Barracuda
In the future a child is given a pet robot by his warring parents. Before long the neglected child grows tired of Blinky the robot and begins to play unkind games on it. It all ends in tears.This was a decent enough, if unremarkable, little short. The robot is easily the best character, although the child actor is incredibly convincing as an annoying little brat. Mostly, this is a showcase for the animation of Blinky. We also get to see an unusual scene where Blinky and the boy pass by another android in the street, with a future city-scape in the distance. Although it isn't a sequence that has much relevance to the plot-line it's probably the most memorable moment in the film. As short films go though, this isn't too bad. The ending is quite amusing as well.
robotbling
(www.plasticpals.com) I thought Blinky™ was decent, though it definitely couldn't sustain a full-length film. Technically speaking it's a great demo, used as an excuse to show off the director's expertise with visual effects. The story focuses on a boy's relationship with his pet robot during the break-up of his parent's marriage. You'll have to venture into spoiler territory (and past the break) to get my full thoughts on it.Alex, played by Max Records (Where The Wild Things Are), knows what he wants for Christmas: a 4 foot tall humanoid robot named Blinky. Alex is initially overjoyed, but he soon becomes bored of it. Unable to provide any real comfort or support, the robot is revealed for what it really is: a machine incapable of true compassion or friendship. Alex's anger towards his parents leads him to command the robot to kill his family, and when the robot malfunctions it complies.Unfortunately, both the script and the acting aren't very good. We're never given a scene where the parents sit Alex down and explain they are getting divorced, so we don't see Alex's world really fall apart. It would have helped to show that Alex was an unpopular kid at school to further highlight his isolation and dependence on the robot, while also engendering some sympathy from the audience. Instead, we're given a brief scene where Alex and Blinky are carrying groceries – what's the point? Well a fancy robot walks by, and that seems to be it: to show off more special effects.Sure, the attention to detail on the robot and some of the near-future background elements is nice, but it fails as a film. If you're interested in robots it is probably worth the 12 minute running time, but personally I can think of a dozen ways this could have been better. As a fun aside Blinky looks quite a bit like LG's robot mascot (both feature bulbous heads and are entirely computer-generated).
