I liked this but didn’t love it. Hanks is great, as usual. The setting of the story works well and it’s supported by some nice if undistinguished visuals. Some genuinely funny moments occur as the titular Finch (Hanks) attempts to teach his newly created robot (Jeff) about survival (or rather his dog’s survival). There are some moments of tension that work well, even if they are similar to countless other post-apocalyptic films. But it’s fairly well-paced and it did have two of my children in tears by the conclusion—which I suspect was the goal. And that’s fine. It’s a good movie for all of the above reasons. I just felt like Finch had a more poignant character arc that wasn’t completed. There’s this backstory where Finch begrudgingly acknowledges the work of his development team even though he believed them to be “knuckleheads”. This serves to highlight the the core issue that Finch simply didn’t trust his team. Finch has a difficult time even defining the word trust for Jeff. On multiple occasions, Finch voices his aversion to going anywhere there might be other people. He doesn’t trust people. Maybe it’s because they’re not as predictable as, say, the behavior of UV radiation (as he says). Maybe it’s because his team was truly untrustworthy; or maybe it’s because people destroyed the planet that he so loved. But, surely Finch’s character arc would lead him to a place where he would learn to trust people again, a redemption of his ability to trust, or perhaps redemption of humanity itself. Spoiler: Finch doesn’t. He trusts only a robot of his own creation.  He trusts predictability. Humanity is not redeemed in his eyes. Perhaps that was the goal….but that made me sad. 

Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1
Tom Hanks and Kevin Bacon in Apollo 13