Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Finch review says the Apple TV+ movie starring Tom Hanks as the only human is a very humane and moving experience.

I swear this is not a paid post, and I receive zero remuneration from Apple TV+ for writing this, but if you’re still trying to decide whether or not to subscribe to the Apple’s streaming service, Tom Hanks‘ Finch should push you over the edge. As if Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon in The Morning Show, Emmy award sweeping comedy Ted Lasso, sci-fi masterpiece Foundation and the upcoming The Shrink Next Door with Will Farrell and Paul Rudd aren’t enough.

I’m having a hard time thinking of another actor who could so masterfully grip our attention as the lone human for an entire film, as he did so adroitly in Castaway (with just a little help from Helen Hunt and a volleyball named Wilson.)

In Finch, Hanks plays a lonely robotics engineer who has managed to survive a cataclysmic solar event that has decimated the earth’s population, and has turned the earth’s surface into a toxic nightmare. Finch is left with a sweet dog and a rudimentary robot,  and sets out to build a more advanced robot who can take care of his pup in the event of his demise.

He designs the robot (voiced by Caleb Landry Jones) to brim with artificial intelligence, learning as he goes. Finch decides to take this dubious crew on a survivalist road trip in a rusty but tricked out SUV, hoping to make it to the West Coast where they air may be cleaner and good-willed survivors may exist. 

Elegantly helmed by sci-fi director Miguel Sapochnik (Repo Man plus episodes of Altered Carbon, Under the Dome and Game of Thrones, to name a few), this is not the first time we’ve seen a post-apocalyptical world, but the humanity displayed by Hanks is indeed unique and consummately moving.

Be forewarned that this movie is not tragedy free. Even Disney animated films have a degree of sadness. Only the most stoic among us will make it through without shedding a tear.

But this kind of catharsis is why many of us go to the movies, or in this case, conveniently watch in the comfort of our own homes.

Rated PG-13

2 Hour 55 Minutes

If this Finch review inspires you to subscribe to Apple TV+, find facts and figures here.

Lisa Johnson Mandell’s Finch review says the Apple TV+ movie starring Tom Hanks as the only human is a very humane and moving experience.