The Reel Review
A computer engineer asked to beta test a new companion robot overrides its AI to make it more self-aware, inadvertently turning it into a jealous, violent, murderous monster. Lily Sullivan, David Rysdahl and Claudia Doumit (The Boys, Timeless) star in this horror/thriller.
Soulm8te is the more adult-themed spin off of the M3GAN films, only this time it is a sexual/romantic companion robot that goes berserk. Sullivan (Evil Dead Rise, Monolith) is pretty convincing as the psycho robot who when faceplate-less, looks suspiciously like one of the Fembots in the late 1970s TV series The Bionic Woman or 1997’s Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. Rysdahl (Oppenheimer, Alien: Earth, Fargo) is also solid as the lonely, newly-widowed tech engineer who unleashes this AI beast.
The story itself from co-writer/director Kate Dolan (You Are Not My Mother) is pretty predictable – think M3GAN, just with nudity, sex and a lot more violence, and where the jerks and sleazeballs typically fall prey to the crazed robot, while the “nice” people survive. Even so, it’s a mindlessly fun way to kill an hour and a half.
REEL FACTS
• David Rysdahl married actress Zazie Beetz in 2023, nine years after they first met.
• Soulm8te originally was scheduled for a theatrical run, but after the disappointing box office of 2025’s M3GAN 2.0, was sent straight to streaming.
• RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK vs. the World Series 1 winner Blu Hydrangea (Joshua Cargill) has a cameo in the film.
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