Bruce Willis gears for action against both humans and robots in the sci-fi “Vice” where he plays Julian Michaels who has designed the ultimate resort – a place where anything goes and the customers can play out their wildest fantasies with artificial inhabitants who look, think and feel like humans.
When an artificial (Ambyr Childers) becomes self-aware and escapes, she finds herself caught in the crossfire between Julian’s mercenaries and a cop (Thomas Jane) who is hell-bent on shutting down Vice, and stopping the violence once and for all. “Vice” was the perfect script to move Emmett Furla Oasis into the high concept science-fiction action space,” says producer Randall Emmett. “Director Brian Miller has the talent to creatively construct a world so different from the one in which we live, and elicited beautifully nuanced performances from our talented cast including Ambyr, Thomas, and Bruce.
“The concept for “Vice” came to me because I was thinking about robots, and if we did create artificial intelligence, sexbots would likely be one of the first uses,” suggests writer Jeremy Passmore, recalling when the idea first came to him. “Every time there is advancement in technology the boundaries are immediately pushed. If the robot we create has actually consciousness and could feel every bit of its emotions and its thoughts were every bit as real as ours are, then where do you draw the line? You can’t just create these things and use them as slaves.”
“On the surface, it’s a revenge story about an artificially intelligent being who becomes self-aware for the first time,” begins writer Andre Fabrizio, who shares a love of science-fiction with writing partner Passmore. “On a deeper level I think what appealed to Jeremy and I was more the inevitability of artificial intelligence and how it should be treated as well as the fact that there is an assumption that artificial intelligence shouldn’t be viewed with the same rights.”
“The idea of a computer, or artificially created machine becoming self-aware is a very real prospect,” adds Passmore. “Nobody really knows where that is going to lead so that is a very deep vein to be mined in terms of science fiction because there are many possibilities and I think we chose one where it wasn’t really placing a judgment, but it was more about the morality of what makes something alive and what kind of rights does a being that is self-aware have intrinsically.”
Returning to shoot a second feature film in Alabama, director Brian Miller raised eyebrows when he told people it was a science-fiction movie. “Mobile, Alabama had that eclectic feel and I was certain we could shoot both parts of “Vice’s” worlds there,” affirms Miller, of the story that takes place in a pristine fantasy world within a dystopian future.
Experience rabid action like never before when “Vice” opens January 28 in cinemas nationwide.