Four prototype robots are illegally deployed to perform a live field test - but something goes very, very wrong...
A robotics company vying to win a lucrative military contract team up with a corrupt CIA agent to conduct an illegal live field test. They deploy four weaponised prototype robots into a suspected drug manufacturing camp in the Golden Triangle, assuming they'd be killing drug runners that no one would miss. Six doctors on a humanitarian mission witness the brutal slaughter and become prime targets.
"Monsters Of Man" is a 2020 science fiction film written and directed by Mark Toia and the cast includes Brett Tutor, Conrad Pratt, Ly Ty, Paul Haapaniemi, Neal McDonough, and Jose Rosete. As of July 2021, it's available to watch on Apple TV, Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, YouTube, Google Play, Vimeo On Demand, and Microsoft Movies & TV.
Monsters Of Man also has a website
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As of February 2023, the film is free to watch on YouTube as part of a charity drive.
This film provides examples of:
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: BR-04 was created to destroy life; in the end, it chooses to protect life, instead.
- Anyone Can Die: And how. Out of a named cast of seventeen, only six survive to the end of the movie.
- Artificial Intelligence: Each of the four robots possesses an AI so advanced that they have to be kept cut off from any outside sources of information in order to keep them from learning anything that might affect their performance. Naturally, one of them loses its Restraining Bolt - and then finds an Internet connection.
- Government Conspiracy: The robots' mission is very illegal, and thus very hush-hush, and the CIA agent calling the shots will do anything to keep the truth from getting out.
- Grew Beyond Their Programming: BR-04 turns on its "brothers" when it begins to question its existence and purpose, and finally turns on its creators as well, after deciding that life is worth protecting.
- Head Crushing: Alas, poor Angie, courtesy of a Finishing Stomp from the robot pursuing her.
- Heel–Face Turn: BR-04
- Also the tech team, leading to Redemption Equals Death for two of them.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Boller's ultimate fate.
- Implacable Man: The machines themselves. Only detonating their explosive packs can guarantee a kill.
- Ironic Last Words: "You didn't save shit."
- It Can Think: Much to Major Green's and the tech team's horror, and Foster's delight.
- Just a Machine: Spoken almost word-for-word by Mason when BR-04 is questioning him.
- Leave No Witnesses: The humanitarian doctors witnessed the massacre, so Major Green orders their deaths, setting off the film's main conflict.
- Man Versus Machine: Essentially the entire plot of the movie.
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Moral Event Horizon: Major Green and Boller both cross this line - repeatedly. - Next Sunday A.D.: The movie carefully skirts around providing any dates, but everything in the movie - from the settings to the technology - is indistinguishable from the 2020s.... with the exception of highly-advanced military AI.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Boller's actions lead not only to his death, but to BR-04 successfully uploading itself to the network.
- Ominous Walk: The machines don't need to rest, unlike their human prey; there's no rush when it comes to hunting the humans down.
- Power at a Price: Invoked with the plan to use BR-03 to hunt down BR-04 - its upgrades make it faster and stronger, at the cost of burning through its battery in only five hours.
- Robo Speak: BR-04's voice is a mechanical-sounding bass monotone with very little inflection.
- Robot Soldier: Explicitly the intended purpose of the prototype robots. The military obviously liked the idea, if the film's stinger is anything to go by.
- Rogue Drone: BR-04
- Run or Die: None of the weapons fielded by the protagonists have any serious effect on the machines - even stepping on a landmine only slows one down for a few seconds. The only option is to run.
- Sacrificial Lion: Prak, the village's leader.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Mason is an AWOL Navy Seal who abandoned his post to live in the village after one too many traumas.
- Smart People Build Robots: Kroger, Jantz, and Fielding.
- The Sociopath: Major Green sees nothing wrong with turning four robot soldiers loose on a village full of innocent people as a test of their functionality - or with siccing them on the American citizens who just happened to witness the massacre.
- Sociopathic Soldier: Boller really seems to enjoy intimidating, threatening, and outright murdering people.
- The Stinger: Despite the clear flaws in target programming shown in the illegal operation and BR-04 going rogue, the top brass in the U.S. Military go ahead with the development anyway.
- Three Laws-Compliant: Averted, hard. These robots were specifically created to cause harm to humans and they go about it with cold, determined efficiency.
- Too Dumb to Live: Fielding decides that she no longer wants to be part of the project, and immediately goes outside, stands under the window, and calls her boyfriend to spill the beans right where Boller can hear her. He kills her, and then calls in an assassin to kill the boyfriend, too.
- Unnecessarily Creepy Robot: Yes, they're designed to murder people, but did they have to be so creepy, too?
- Would Hurt a Child: One of the robots' first victims is a crying infant, killed off-screen. Of the rest of the village's many children, only Leap survives.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Kroger and Jantz. Jantz survives.
