Tempbot (2006) User Reviews

An Interesting Look at Alienation in the Workplace

[areo_b · 7/10 · 13 July 2007]

The short film "Tempbot" by Neill Blomkamp is an interesting examination of the alienation experienced by temporary workers at office places across America. The film follows a 'tempbot', a robot assigned for a short period of time at an ordinary office, and his romantic endeavours with the Human Resources manager. The interesting thing about the film is that the fact that the main character is a robot is of the least importance in the film, because it shows that workers in offices treat temps as less-than-human. The film just takes the analogy literally and makes the character a robot to further illustrate the point. The best part of the film is the special effects which are flawlessly incorporated with the real images. Blomkamp has a special talent for weaving the CGI into realistic settings and making the viewer comfortable with the idea of these fantastical creations (in this case robots) thus it doesn't detract from the film. The film doesn't necessarily have any weaknesses, it just doesn't amaze. Overall it is worth the fifteen minutes it takes to watch and is another visually remarkable film from Neill Blomkamp.

Blomkamp not yet at his best

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 24 March 2016]

"Temmpbot" is a 15-minute live action short film from 10 years ago and the director here is Neill Blomkamp, who made this short film shortly before his big breakthrough with "District 9", a film that I am a great fan of. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about this movie here. There is a touch of social criticism as in all of Blomkamp's works and it is also about the communication issues between human and non-human characters. The premise is decent, but the elaboration in detail was not really convincing to me. I never felt I was watching a flow, a story during which scenes worked together well. Maybe the reason is that Blomkamp did not write this little film. Overall, I do not recommend it and I also didn't like the ending, which felt like giving the audience a cheap thrill to make it more memorable and entertaining. Didn't work for me. Thumbs down.