Ben Affleck’s Netflix Thriller Animals Sparks Backlash Over Clumsy AI Editing

POLICY WIRE — London, United Kingdom — Ben Affleck has kept quiet about the precise ways he integrated artificial intelligence into his critically panned Netflix thriller, Animals. However, a combination of sloppy post-production work and an unintentionally hilarious sequence may have inadvertently undermined the very technology he sought to champion.

The sequence in question arrives near the conclusion of the film when a kidnapped child is tossed over the concrete edge of a Los Angeles river channel inside a small red trailer. The boy tumbles down the steep embankment before striking the ground and launching upward into the air, soaring directly into the waiting arms of a sprinting Affleck in clear defiance of all physical laws.

This moment of inadvertent slapstick quickly spread across social media platforms, drawing unflattering comparisons to the heavily ridiculed scene from the 1988 film Mac & Me. In that classic example, a child in a wheelchair plunges over a cliff into a lake, serving as a notorious reference point that surely diverges from what Affleck intended for his dramatic directorial return.

Critics and viewers are left questioning how such a preposterous sequence made its way into the final cut, with artificial intelligence serving as the primary suspect. Affleck openly acknowledged utilizing AI during the production of Animals at a Bloomberg Screentime event, stating that the technology was applied to numerous tasks while declining to share specific details.

Comparing the craft to a magic show, Affleck argued that revealing the inner workings of the illusion would ultimately ruin the experience for the audience. He asserted that Animals serves as an ideal showcase for the practical benefits of AI in human-driven stories, enabling production teams to move swiftly through post-production tasks that would otherwise remain out of reach.

That physics-defying rescue remains the most striking example of artificial intelligence errors left inside the finished movie. An observant Instagram user also discovered a tell-tale background error during a seemingly standard shot of the Sunset Strip, where a billboard advertising the Hulu series Paradise features a misspelled title reading Parasise.

Affleck holds a deeper financial stake in Netflix’s adoption of artificial intelligence than a typical director following a $587 million acquisition in March. The streaming giant purchased InterPositive, an AI-powered filmmaking venture co-founded by the actor in 2022, bringing Affleck aboard as a senior advisor to help deploy custom AI datasets for background generation and lighting adjustments.

If Animals was designed to validate the massive investment in AI tools, executives at Netflix might be reassessing whether the expenditure was justified. The film’s reliance on technology that generates comedic mishaps rather than polished practical stunts raises questions about the long-term value of these digital shortcuts.

Broader concerns regarding Netflix’s approach to content have also surfaced, particularly after comments made by Affleck and Matt Damon while promoting another project, The Rip. The duo discussed the streamer’s apparent belief that many subscribers act as second-screen viewers requiring simplistic plots, rendering background continuity errors and exaggerated effects largely inconsequential to the platform.

Beyond the technological missteps, Animals struggles with fundamental narrative hurdles as it follows a mayoral candidate whose son is targeted by a kidnapper. The central premise borrows a compelling plot twist from Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 classic High and Low, though the concept was recently adapted by Spike Lee in Highest 2 Lowest starring Denzel Washington.

While Lee’s version achieved an 83 percent critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, Animals languishes with a dismal 35 percent score. Reviewers targeted lifeless performances from heavyweight cast members including Gillian Anderson and Kerry Washington, alongside clunky exposition and a general absence of cinematic nuance.

Ironically, the film itself contains an explicit warning about the technology used to create it, as Affleck’s character remarks that an anonymous phone caller’s voice was disguised using artificial intelligence. Future projects may benefit from heeding that internal message regarding the pitfalls of automated shortcuts.

Reporting by Policy-Wire (PW)