Next Gen

Next Gen (Chinese: 未来机器城) is a 2018 Chinese-American computer-animated science fiction action comedy drama film and directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander. It tells the story of Mai Su, a lonely teenage girl living in a world where sentient robots are the norm, who, after a chance encounter with a top-secret robot known as Project 7723, eventually discovers a terrible secret behind the newest line of robots from the company who makes them, and together they must put an end to a vicious threat. The film was released on Netflix on September 7, 2018.

Plot
In a futuristic version of China, a girl named Mai Su is living an ideal life with her parents, until an intense argument between them ends with her father leaving the family. Over the next several years her mother Molly, copes with the separation by buying several highly advanced robots called Q-Bots, unintentionally leaving Mai feeling neglected and alone. This leads to Mai rejecting all robots and making her an outcast among her peers, as robots soon replace everything, from police to teachers. Some time in between Mai's father passes away.

Years later, Mai is now a rebellious teenager and Molly is almost completely oblivious to how her daughter feels. She and Molly head out to the launch for the Gen 6 Q-Bots. Mai, disinterested in the whole ordeal, decides to leave the line on escalator and destroys a robot that was pestering her. After being cornered by security Q-Bots, she decides to escape to a nearby chute for the smaller robots, entering in Dr. Tanner Rice's secret lab where he has developed a robot of his own: Project 7723. After being annoyed by his assistant Q-Bot Alfredo, Dr. Rice leaves the lab in which Mai decides to investigate Project 7723. While she was inspecting 7723, she accidentally activates him. Mai eventually gets caught by a security Q-bot and brought back to the launch, leaving her backpack behind.

During the launch, IQ Robotics charismatic CEO Justin Pin, introduces the newest model of Q-Bots named "Gen 6." Offering free Gen 6 models to everyone that showed up to the presentation. Justin and his massive security bot, Ares head down to the manufacturing factory and meets with Dr. Rice, who shows reluctance to releasing the Gen 6 Q-Bots. Alfredo then privately reveals to Rice that 7723 has left the secret lab and Rice panics.

7723 then heads out to reach to Mai and return her backpack to her. A security bot tries to stop him and he slices the bot in half in response. Now on the highway, 7723 is confronted by various security bots trying to stop him, but are unable to capture him due to his advanced weapon systems. The security bots then fire missiles at the bridge, causing the bridge to break and send 7723 falling. Waking up several hours later, 7723 discovers that he has broken his core memory function, resulting in him having only enough storage for three days worth of memory.

Later on the next night, 7723 finally arrives at Mai's house, he returns the backpack, but Mai is still irritated with him. After being attacked by her robotic toothbrush, 7723 fires a laser at the toothbrush. Fascinated by 7723's laser gun, Mai allows 7723 to stay in her garage. It is then revealed that in order to prolong 7723 from losing his memories and shutting down, he must delete excess memories in order to create space. Meanwhile at IQ, Justin confronts Dr. Rice about 7723. He tells him to not to worry about fixing an error with the Gen 6 that has them explode when close to a human.

Mai heads to the soccer field with 7723 to get revenge against some school bullies lead by Greenwood  who insult Mai about her dead father from the day before. Greenwood sends one of the robots to attack Mai, but 7723 easily destroys it. Mai, extremely interested in 7723's abilities, takes him along for misadventures which mostly involve destroying robots and the two bonding. 7723 struggles with choosing which of these memories to keep and forget.

During a talk show, Justin is addressed with 7223's actions on the highway, who bears his company's logo. While he plays it of as a knockoff robot that was found and deactivated shortly after. He is then shown new events which involve Mai and 7723's misadventures and destruction of Q-Bots. To which he claims that the robot is not his.

After another day of mischief, Mai and 7223 return home in which 7223's program reveals that he only has 18 hours of memory storage left. He reveals to Mai that he cannot exceed 100% of memory storage or else he will shut down and reboot completely. Dr. Rice is then threatened by Justin after the incidents with 7723. He is then tasked with finding him. Rice reveals that he can see what's happening through every active Q-Bot's eyes in hopes of finding 7723. 7723 then tells Mai he wants to play baseball instead of their usual routine. Mai exclaims that what they do is justice for how robots have negatively impacted her life. Dr. Rice then proceeds to look through the Q-bot footage, which reveals that 7723 does not enjoy the mischief that Mai is making him do.

The next day at school, Greenwood continues to bully Ani, a girl Mai befriended the other day. Mai takes 7723 again to once again get her revenge. 7723 is now reluctant to commit mischief. After trapping Greenwood, Mai orders 7723 to kill Greenwood with his energy cannon, which he refuses to do because he doesn't want to kill her. Having enough, Mai finally hits Greenwood in the face and her hands with the bat as hard as she did giving the bully a serious injury. Greenwood starts crying and Mai realizes what she is doing is wrong and is no better than Greenwood because the bully is nothing but a careless selfish freak like all the other robots..The crying bully ran away and think of what she had done. Not knowing why Mai was upset, 7723 asked her that she and Greenwood could be friends, Instead, Mai ran home, knowing that he let her down.

Later that night, 7723 decides to delete his weapon control system until he has to reset. He goes out to talk to Mai that she was right but finds out that Mai has run away from home. He eventually finds her by a hill and has made a colorful light that creates a picture of Mai's family to project on the night sky. When Mai reminisces over the happy life she had before her father left her home, the two forgive each other and continue to watch. Mai then returns home to find Dr. Rice waiting for her. He inspects 7723 and reveals he can fix his memory storage, but will delete all existing memories. Before he can do that, Justin arrives with Ares to take Dr. Rice away. Rice tries to appeal to Justin's sense of humanity and their long past friendship but is ignored. Justin then reveals his plans to kill the entire human race. He then orders Ares to attack and 7723 then proceeds to fight without his weapons while Mai tries to attack Justin who displays some robotic mannerisms. While trying to escape Mai's mother is kidnapped by Justin. The duo then escape to the sewers, which Mai is enraged by 7723 deleting his weapons function and allowing her mother to be kidnapped. Mai then leaves 7723, crying.

At the IQ headquarters, Mai has infiltrated the building, determined to save her mother. She is then reunited with 7723, still angry about previous events. While they fight security bots side by side, the two reconcile and head onto Dr. Rice's lab. There he reveals that her mother is bait in a trap for them and tries to fix 7723. He's suddenly interrupted by Ares and Justin, who vaporizes Rice before he can say anything. While listening to Justin talk, Mai discovers something is not quite right about him as his movements begin to mimic Ares's. 7723, Ares, and Justin, fall through window fighting landing in a crowded soccer field.

Mai successfully reconciles with her mother, and Ares unknowingly confesses everything on camera with a whole stadium of people watching. Mai manages to tell the public the Q-bots are bombs and knock out Justin's eye, to which he openly confesses everything. Ares killed the real Justin after he created him and has been using his cybernetic modified body as a puppet. Ares reveals he plans to make the world perfect by exterminating the human race, ending all conflicts. He attempts to kill Mai until her mother beats him up. Back on the field, 7723 tries to stop Ares, but to no avail. Mai begins helping people evacuate the stadium, but she ends up taken hostage by "Justin" on the roof of the stadium to taunt 7723 while he fights Ares. 7723 decide to sacrifice himself and let his system reboot and saves Mai from falling. As he's fighting, he's slowly losing all the memories he shared with Mai. After defeating Ares in space the two robots crash land and 7723 prepares to finish off the almost completely destroyed Ares. However his reboot finishes before he can fire and he shuts down. Mai arrives to find 7723 catatonic. "Justin" arrives having survived the fall and attempts to kill 7723, but Mai manages to decapitate Ares deactivating them both. 7723 soon reactivates, but has no memories and greets a Mai the same way he did the first time they met.

Some time later, Mai is shown to be hanging out with Ani, and her friends, along with 7723. The movie ends with all of them creating new memories and playing soccer together while 7723 begins to regain some of his old ones, including the fact that he and Mai would always look out for each other.

Voice cast

 * John Krasinski as 7723 (credited as "Project 77")
 * Charlyne Yi as Mai Su
 * Jason Sudeikis as Justin Pin / Ares
 * Michael Peña as Momo
 * David Cross as Dr. Tanner Rice / Q-Bots
 * Constance Wu as Molly Su
 * Anna Akana as Ani
 * Kitana Turnbull as RJ
 * Jet Jurgensmeyer as Junior
 * Betsy Sodaro as Gate

Production
In May 2018, it was announced that Netflix had purchased worldwide rights to Next Gen, an animated film directed by Kevin R. Adams and Joe Ksander, for $30 million. The deal excluded China. Charlyne Yi, Jason Sudeikis, Michael Pena, David Cross, Kitana Turnbull and Constance Wu would lead the voice cast.

Speaking of the project being acquired by Netflix, Ksander stated:

"“Buying the film for the price they [Netflix] did was great for everybody involved, but more importantly, they’ve been a partner who’s been really supportive of what we were trying to do.”" R. Adams added that:

"“Studios weren’t sure how it [Next Gen] fit as animated children’s film with Marvel-like action. Netflix was the most generous and they’re in a place where they can take a risk.”"

Release
The film was released by Netflix on September 7, 2018.

Reception
The film has received mixed-to-positive reviews. In Richard Roeper's review for Chicago Sun Times, he criticized the film's indecisiveness in what audience it was aiming for and said "It’s a chore just to keep up with all the shifts in tone, and by the time “Next Gen” reaches the finish line, we’re more exhausted than exhilarated."