David (David Rysdahl) has been in an emotional rut ever since the ultimately death of his fiancée Lizzle (Mara Huf). He plays her last voicemails and spends his time tucked away in an apartment that is a shrunken shadow of the nice cabin they were supposed to move into. There’s a specific room where David keeps all of his former bride-to-be’s belongings. He mostly resigns himself to doing his work as a programmer for a robotics company at a desk in his living room. It’s all really sad.
But lucky (or unlucky) for him (and any other people starving for connection), the small company he works for has been acquired by Ultima Robotix, which is looking to expand its ULTI-M8TE AI chatbot into something more physical. Ultima boss and techbro stand-in Ben (Arty Froushan) introduces a new product into the pantheon—the Ultima SOULM8TE trusty chat logs that are tailored to affirm your whimsical single thought and desire, which will be spliced together into an attractive android/sexbot. But you don’t have to watch enough “Black Mirror” episodes to know that this is a bad idea.
Credit: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
Kate Dolan‘s M3GAN spinoff more or less circles around the same concerns about having these types of companions to supplant human emotion, with a dash of “what if these types of machines turn against us?” The R-rating allows this film to go into some gory, sexier territory than the previous films that set the bar. Yes, there is a song-and-dance number because it’s funny that robots know pop culture (The Cardigans’ “Lovefool” is used in “Soulm8te” for a fun effect). This film ventures into potentially interesting territory, exploring the sometimes contradictory needs humans place on machines and how our own standards can become a corruptible error. However, it never goes beyond scratching the surface—as if the film has system updates that remind you it’s part of the M3GAN franchise.
Much to David’s annoyance, Ben insists that he use the AI chatbot and, if he feels up to it, take on an android prototype to work out the kinks. The programmer develops an attachment to the AI program, talking to it day and night (Dolan inserts a funny “please pay a subscription fee” ad in here for good measure). It lowers his guard, ultimately leading him to welcome an android whom he names Sara (Lily Sullivan). Sara is programmed to be complimentary and subservient to her “beta tester,” but David quickly gets upset by it. Thus, he tinkers with her code to develop her emotional capabilities. Sara engages in trash talk when they play chess, has sex, and starts to maybe develop something.
Credit: Universal Pictures Home Entertainment
But David is still within the frame of mind that Sara is a machine. There’s also the aspect of him getting closer to his co-worker, Aubrey (Claudia Doumit), that is enticing to him. Doumit’s inclusion comes because Sara needs a human foil to battle. In that space of insecurity (can machines feel that?), Sara goes on a YouTube watching spree – downloading everything from beauty tips to trad wife influencer platitudes. With the loosened restrictions and the influx of information, the android becomes increasingly erratic and, eventually, more deadly. A lovefool indeed.
Lily Sullivan’s performance as Sara elevates a premise that too often veers into oversimplification. When Sara is given space, there are moments when one might empathize with the idea that this machine can’t be whatever David wants it to be, whether that’s from Lizzie or Aubrey. Yet the film doesn’t frame his indecisiveness as a deficit. So “Soulm8te” exists in this weird, moral shades-of-gray territory that would rather go into Skynet’s self-aware realm. It’s a horror movie and there’s a definite rush to get to those aspects without mining some of the better questions this film moves past.
Aside from some cool practical effects and some kills targeting male genitalia, it’s hard to see why there was a push to make this film mature. Aside from some adult situations, a couple of gory kills, and brief nudity, there’s not much present to differentiate it from the M3GAN films before it. The most frustrating thing about “Soulm8te” is the untapped potential to develop this concept into something more than just a sister story to the tentpole before it.
It’s unfortunate that 2025’s “Companion” and this year’s “Obsession” came out before this film (“Soulm8te” was in development as early as June 2024 and got it’s original January 2nd theatrical release date pushed back) because those films tapped into a tangible fear of the falacity of the “nice guy” and how those underpinnings and cloaks turn out to be something more sinister. With “Companion,” it’s with its own female robot, and with “Obsession,” it’s with a supernatural wish. Dolan’s film lightly asks the same questions about female autonomy with an avatar and tech intrusions into our everyday lives, albeit not with definitiveness but with hesitation. The result is a familiar Frankenstein-monster cautionary tale we’ve grown extremely accustomed to seeing.
