The Robin Williams Sci-Fi Thriller Everyone Has Forgotten
Robin Williams is rightfully remembered as one of the funniest actors and comedians in Hollywood history, so he is mostly known for his comedic work. However, even some of his biggest fans don’t realize that Robin Williams starred in The Final Cut, a killer sci-fi thriller that has been mostly forgotten. And that’s a shame: after you watch this film on VOD, we can guarantee that you’ll never look at Williams the same way ever again.
Robin Williams is the star of the underrated sci-fi thriller The Final Cut, available for rent on VOD.
Robin Williams plays a character in The Final Cut with a very specific job. Because this is a world where memory implants help to record the entirety of people’s lives, putting together memorial videos for funerals is easier than ever.
But because nobody is perfect, Williams’ character has the job of editing the memories of some of the worst people so they can have a squeaky-clean memorial that their family and friends find acceptable.
Part of what makes Robin Williams’ job difficult in The Final Cut is that these memorial videos are as long as a feature film. As a “cutter,” he must abide by many specific rules when it comes to cutting these memorials together, but his life starts coming apart once a former cutter tries to buy somebody’s precious memories.
This leads to a dangerous path of voyeurism and self-discovery that soon changes his life forever.
The cast of the film is small but talented: in addition to Robin Williams, The Final Cut stars Mira Sorvino as Williams’ lover and Jim Caviezel as Fletcher, a former cutter who helps kick the drama into high gear.
They are joined by supporting actors such as Stephanie Romanov (best known for playing Lilah Morgan on Angel) and Brendan Fletcher (who was great as Mark Davis in Freddy vs. Jason). Of course, depending on who you talk to, the real star of this particular film is the script.
The Final Cut is also worth watching because it is arguably more relevant than ever before.
Robin Williams was an amazing actor, and it helps that he had a great screenplay to work with in The Final Cut. Based largely on the strength of its story, the movie went on to get nominations for best film at the Sitges Film Festival and Berlin International Film Festival. And it even snagged the coveted award for best screenplay at the Deauville American Film Festival.
How Critics And Audiences Responded To The Final Cut
However, once the film came out, audiences soon discovered that Robin Williams’ performance and The Final Cut’s psychological rollercoaster were something of an acquired taste. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has a 36 percent critical score, with some critics finding the film a bit too pretentious despite its ambitious storyline. But some very influential critics found a lot to love in this movie, including Roger Ebert, the most esteemed critic of them all.
When reviewing the film, Roger Ebert pointed out that Robin Williams gave a performance that was good enough to overcome some of The Final Cut’s story limitations. For example, he pointed out that the movie is very good at creating postmodern dilemmas for its characters to solve, which is a staple of good sci-fi.
But he felt that the movie never found a very natural way out of some of those dilemmas but that Williams gave a performance nuanced enough to make watching the film worth watching.
And even if you are somehow not a fan of Robin Williams (statistically, there has to be one or two of you out there), The Final Cut is also worth watching because it is arguably more relevant than ever before. When the movie first came out back in 2004, the idea of people using technology to record a perfect record of their lives really did seem like science fiction.
Now, most of us record most of our lives via social media, and between our desire to be remembered and Elon Musk working on neural technology, the world of The Final Cut seems closer now than ever before.
If you’d like to discover how creepy that world can be, you can check out Robin Williams in The Final Cut on VOD today. The movie is a thriller in every sense of the word, keeping you on the edge of your seat with every fantastic revelation. And since we can’t record our memories just yet, we wouldn’t be surprised if you do the next best thing and remember Williams’ legacy by binge-watching all of his best movies.
