Latency, 2024.
Written and Directed by James Croke.
Starring Sasha Luss and Alexis Ren.
SYNOPSIS:
When professional gamer Hana, who suffers from acute agoraphobia, receives new equipment that enhances her game, she begins to wonder if it is reading her mind – or controlling it.
If nothing else, at least writer/director James Croke’s Latency portrays AI as villainous. The technology referred to is a groundbreaking device that reads brain activity and, over time, develops synchronicity with its user, speeding up their reaction time and helping them become exponentially more efficient in an online multiplayer battlefield. However, in a world where PC competitive online gaming is already severely hampered by cheat code mods, it’s a wonder why any company would want to create such a device or how things wouldn’t simply become balanced again as more gamers continue to buy them as a necessary attachment to complete properly. Or will developers and gamers themselves consider this device outright cheating?
Some of this is touched upon since professional gamer Hana (Sasha Luss), who is experiencing acute agoraphobia in the real world and still trying to overcome grief, has been delivered a promotional/testing copy of the device. As her longtime best friend Jen (Alexis Ren) puts it, a negative review from a top streamer is a marketing death sentence, whereas some critical feedback from a “has-been” means nothing.
Following a lengthy compatibility synchronization process (that includes typing, mouse maneuvering, and physical pain exercises), Hana realizes that with this newly acquired skill advantage, she can easily enter those competitive tournaments she is generally afraid to sign up for, convincingly take the top cash prize, and pay off some landlord debts, among other things.
Latency is also technically a horror/thriller experience, meaning that Hana also begins to have creepy hallucinations related to her traumatic past that resulted in the loss of her parents. This haunting presence also manifests itself in ways that prove dangerous to Jen while seemingly doing everything to ensure Hana stays inside her apartment room, even when it’s time to break up and escape a home that blurs the lines between reality and digital spaces.
The usual tropes are here: a comforting voice for the AI device, scary visions as an excuse for cheap jump scares, attempts to get the viewer to question what is real and what isn’t, and a revelation that whatever Hana has been doing indoors for years is not living. At times, the narrative seems to have contempt for gaming as a hobby, as if it is the single reason for Hana’s inability to move on. This is counteracted by numerous nostalgic references to video games (such as question mark blocks from Super Mario.)
Beyond a story uncertain of what point it wants to make, Latency simply isn’t scary or engaging, no matter how hard it tries to manipulate Hana and the viewer’s perception of reality. Even the central gimmick of a device greatly aiding a player in competitive online gameplay is wasted, amounting to nothing more than watching Sasha Luss smiling and spinning around in her fancy gaming chair, racking up kills with her mind. That’s without even getting into some forced scenes incorporating imagined battles against CGI creatures. The whole idea has promise and exciting urgency in a world where general society doesn’t yet seem to realize the dangers of AI, but Latency is littered with a buggy, muddled execution.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
