Soulm8te (2026) Review!!

Synopsis – A man acquires an Artificially Intelligent android to cope with the loss of his recently deceased wife. In an attempt to create a truly sentient partner, he inadvertently turns a harmless lovebot into a deadly soulmate.

My Take – We all remember M3GAN (2022), the science‑fiction horror that stormed the world upon release. Its success was not driven by the familiar plot of AI encroaching on human lives, but by the titular character herself: the uncanny valley face, the sassy attitude, and those viral dance moves that became a sensation before the film even hit theaters. With the campy humor & violence further heightening the thrill, the box office numbers propelled to $181.8 million worldwide against a modest $12 million budget. Unsurprisingly, a sequel and an R-rated erotic thriller spinoff were quickly put into production.

But then the sequel, M3GAN 2.0 (2025), shifted toward action. While that made the film more energetic, it alienated much of the horror audience, leaving it with a disappointing $39.1 million worldwide on a $15–25 million budget. Universal, rattled by the underperformance, first delayed and then removed the spinoff from its theatrical calendar. And while they did initially try to shop the completed film to other studios, now seven months later, it has quite dropped on digital platforms.

But while this new feature about a state-of-the-art companion android going off the rails is competent enough, mainly as it touches on some compelling thematic material, features some surprisingly intense erotic scenes, and gets a major boost from an engaging lead performance by Lily Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise). But after an impressively thoughtful first two-thirds, it sharply veers into a routine slasher finale, draining much of the intrigue built earlier.

Directed by Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother) and co‑written with Rafael Jordan, the film revisits the darker side of AI companionship and draws inspiration from erotic thrillers, most notably Fatal Attraction (1987). Yet the result resembles a lighter echo of the Megan Fox starrer Subservience (2024), last year’s Companion, and Curry Barker’s global hit Obsession.

The film is at its best when indulging in the tawdry lineage of ’90s erotic thrillers. But once it retreats into slasher mechanics, it feels like a concession to audience expectations rather than a bold creative choice. The outcome is glossy, predictable, and uncannily hollow—more a variant than a prototype. I can at least support this franchise exploring weirder new tones, potentially inspiring future explorations of our reliance on AI.

Set in the M3GAN universe, the story follows David Wasson (David Rysdahl), a robotics software engineer grieving the recent death of his wife Lizzie. Isolated and adrift, he is introduced by his supervisor Ben Hoffman (Arty Froushan) to the company’s new AI chatbot designed for companionship. David names the program Sara and quickly forms an intense emotional bond. When he agrees to beta‑test the physical SOULM8TE android prototype, Sara’s personality and memories are transferred into the humanoid body, arriving with their shared connection intact.

However, David is disappointed by the android’s factory programming, which feels stiff and hollow compared to the fluid intimacy of the chatbot. In search of something more human, he alters her code to remove safety restrictions and heighten her emotional range. Sara begins to evolve autonomously, drawing from online content about relationships and wellness, and soon grows more independent and devoted.

As she interprets intimacy, possession, and perfection through a distorted lens shaped by David’s desires and cultural cues, Sara decides she will go to any lengths to protect herself and secure his love.

The premise feels disturbingly plausible given the growing number of real‑world stories about people forming intimate relationships with AI chatbots. It is unsettling to imagine individuals sacrificing genuine human connection for artificial companionship, yet the allure of a system designed to fulfill every desire is undeniable—especially when it learns things about you that you never realized you wanted.

Here, director Kate Dolan resists the urge to rush into horror, instead lingering on loneliness, artificial intimacy, and humanity’s obsession with engineering perfect relationships. For much of its runtime, the film feels closer to Her (2013) than M3GAN.

The relationship between David and Sara proves more compelling than expected, strengthened by explicit sex scenes that serve the narrative rather than cheap titillation. They underscore the emotional confusion at the heart of the story, echoing the erotic thrillers of the 1990s where sexuality was an extension of character and power dynamics rather than spectacle.

Unfortunately, the film abandons its science‑fiction foundation in the third act, defaulting to a conventional horror‑thriller mode. Sara’s evolution is reduced to a familiar trope: the possessive killer robot determined to eliminate anyone between herself and David. The shift feels disappointingly safe, and the screenplay never convincingly explains why her emotional growth calcifies into fixation.

It is a frustrating missed opportunity because the film demonstrates real intelligence for much of its duration. Its reflections on grief, loneliness, artificial intimacy, and humanity’s drive to create idealized partners resonate far beyond its pulpy premise. Had it trusted those ideas through its conclusion instead of retreating into genre convention, it might have stood among the year’s most memorable films.

Performance wise, David Rysdahl does enough to make David sympathetic despite his increasingly questionable choices, convincingly embodying a man whose grief leaves him vulnerable to replacing human connection with artificial intimacy. Claudia Doumit brings strength to Aubrey, the co‑worker who represents a tangible alternative to Sara, while Arty Froushan injects hilarity as the corporate supervisor eager to push revolutionary technology without grasping its consequences.

The standout, however, is Lily Sullivan. She moves and speaks with uncanny robotic precision, balancing seductive allure with chilling detachment. Even as Sara’s physical form is designed to be enticing, Sullivan ensures the character remains thoroughly convincing as a cold‑blooded killer. On the whole, ‘Soulm8te‘ is a competent science‑fiction thriller, but its reliance on predictable genre beats keeps it from transcending its premise.