After the surprising flop of M3GAN 2.0 killed the once-promising killer robot doll franchise dead in its sophomore outing, also taking collateral damage was the already made Soulm8te (which should be pronounced soul-mate-te) slated for January 2026 release before being removed from the schedule and quietly dumped to streaming eight months later. Was it unfairly punished for another movie's failure? Let's find out. (Spoiler: No.)
After a cold open scene showing an Ultima Robotix sexbot killing a tester (hello, OSHA?), we meet David (David Rysdahl, Fargo S5), an engineer for Canta Robotics, a firm bought by Ultima, who is grieving the recent death of his wife. His supervisor suggests he use the company's ULTI-M8TE AI chatbot as a therapeutic tool and he begins forming a relationship with it (the makers of Her on line 2 for you guys) and then registers to beta test the SOULM8TE android, which he names Sara (Lily Sullivan, Evil Dead Rise, who reminds me of Species star Natasha Henstridge though her bulbous nose tip was distracting).
He merges his ULTI-MATE profile with the bot (the makers of Blade Runner 2049 on line 3), but is disappointed that it all feels...well, robotic, so he proceeds to start hacking her programming to make her more independent and realistic because he's apparently never seen a movie where Very Bad Things happen when you tamper with the code. Of course, he has sex with Sara because she's a hot blonde programmed to love him and the makers of Companion and Subservience are on lines 4 and 5, guys.
To the surprise of no one except the characters in the movie, Sara becomes more possessive and jealous of David, especially when he starts flirting with his meatbag coworker, Aubrey (Claudia Doumit, The Boys), so she's at risk because hell hath no fury like a jealous fembot scorned who has the ability to fabricate deepfake porn and tear the junk off any man who gets busy with her which raises questions like, "Do Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics exist in this world?" and "Did no one in Ultima's legal department raise a red flag about the liability issues that come with making a product that can tear dicks off?"
I understand we're dealing with trashy trash B-movie stuff where we're supposed to just go with the flow and look at the robo-boobs, but there are ways to handle the material especially when chatbots, social isolation, loneliness, AI and other elements here are coming front and center in the cultural zeitgeist. Fortunately, there are better movies that already handle things: Her and Companion. Watch those instead.
Score: 4/10. Skip it.
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