Film Review: The Singularity Protocol (2026) (Short) - USA
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 6.5/10
Rating: ★★★
Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog
Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com
US Director Craig McCourry's "The Singularity Protocol" is a film that buzzes with ideas like a trapped hornet in a jar – fascinating, intense, occasionally jarring, and ultimately constrained by its own ambitious design. This 40-minute sci-fi short, attempts a high-wire act: a time-bending conversation across a century, linking a desperate soldier in a 1941 Hong Kong bunker with an enigmatic AI from 2046. It doesn't always maintain its balance, but the sheer audacity of the premise and the palpable atmosphere it conjures make it a journey worth taking, bumps and all.
McCourry, working with clear budgetary limitations, achieves a minor miracle in production design. Shot in Battle Ground, Washington, the bunker setting feels authentically oppressive – the concrete walls sweat desperation, the dim light barely holds back the crushing weight of history and imminent doom. You smell the damp concrete, feel the grit, and understand the claustrophobic terror of Kenny Sale and Mason Tiden's soldiers, clinging to his radio like a lifeline. Tiden and Sale both delivers a performance of raw, grounded humanity that serves as the essential anchor. Opposite both is the AI “Cosmo” - the calm, unsettling counterpoint as the voice from the future, its interactions with Tiden and Sale forming the film's compelling core. The film's most potent moment arrives not with a bang, but with an insidious whisper: the chilling bleed-through of the future AI's sterile, omnipotent voice ("Cosmos") into the crackling, analogue static of the 1940s radio.
Forty minutes proves an awkward length. It feels both short for its essentially simple, dialogue-driven "conversation through time" structure, yet frustratingly truncated when it comes to exploring the fascinating, terrifying implications of the 2046 "Singularity" itself. We get glimpses, hints, but the mechanics feel hand-waved, the stakes vaguely defined beyond the immediate peril. The script, particularly in its crucial final act, leans heavily into exposition. The AI's explanation of its "protocol" descends into dense, tech-jargon monologues that feel less like a dramatic climax and more like a lecture hastily appended to meet the concept's demands.
“The Singularity Protocol" functions best as a potent mood piece, a slice of existential dread served cold in a concrete tomb. It has the unsettling vibe and conceptual hook of McCourry’s previous work on Battle of Hong Kong history (Christmas at Royal Hotel, Hong Kong 1942 & Battlebox), albeit one filtered through 21st-century anxieties about AI and technological overreach. McCourry demonstrates a confident hand with tension and performance, squeezing remarkable claustrophobia and human drama from a single location. Watch out for Kathy Wen’s (singer and Producer) song as the credit rolls.
“The Singularity Protocol" is a bold, bumpy ride – a time-heist narrative that grabs your attention with its premise and atmosphere but occasionally fumbles the intricate payload of its own ideas. It’s not a perfectly smooth transmission across the decades, but the static carries moments of genuine power and dread. For fans of McCourry’s trilogy and historical sci-fi mashups and thought-provoking speculative fiction, it’s a compelling, if flawed, 40 minutes. It earns its rating for ambition, atmosphere, and those chilling moments where the future whispers terrifyingly into the past. Just don't expect every plot thread to be neatly tied by the singularity. (Neo, 2026)
Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com