Movie review: NZ-filmed kids’ fantasy ‘I, Object’ falls flat on its face

Review by

Sarah Watt

Film reviewer·New Zealand Listener·

31 Jul, 2026 06:04 PM2 mins to read

Sarah reviewed for the Sunday Star Times until 2019. After a career change to secondary school teaching, she now she works in alternative education with our most disadvantaged rangatahi.

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I, Object centres on Tom, a 10-year-old boy with a vivid imagination where faces come alive in everyday objects. Photo / Umbrella

I, Object directed by Andrew Niccol is in cinemas now

Although admirably original in its conceit, I, Object is a children’s movie with wholesome intentions which completely misses the mark.

Shooting in Wellington, LA-resident New Zealand director Andrew Niccol spins a feature-length yarn out of his own experience with
face pareidolia: the tendency to see facial patterns in inanimate objects.

Afflicted with this condition is 10-year-old Thomas (Bentley Storteboom), a social outcast grieving the death of his father, who finds solace in the chatty companionship of Benny the alarm clock (Ethan Hawke, star of Niccol’s breakout Gattaca), cheese-grater “Alexander the Grate”, and a Jemaine Clement-voiced soft-drink can.

Karl Urban (The Boys) plays the broadly written evil stepfather, whose frustration with the kid’s strange attachment to household implements sends Tom to a mental hospital for unsympathetic therapy. But when the weird boy meets an equally weird girl, Tom and similarly neglected Allie (Skywalker Hughes) embark on an adventure to prove they’re not crazy and that we should tolerate people who are different.

At least, that’s one positive interpretation of a badly written movie which squanders its voice cast (Melanie Lynskey and Thomasin McKenzie also contribute). Niccol’s script is cliched, thinly drawn and repetitive, with the cutesy objects’ dialogue limited to thrown-away puns and missable one-liners. Even the young human heroes deliver uninspired performances in a story which feels as dated as it looks.

And that’s the problem. Back in the mid-80s this film would have felt charming. But a gangbusters movie score, celebrity voice cameos and lovely production design do not a children’s movie make nowadays. Used to fast editing and snappily-animated humour, the kids of today will find this story predictable, too slow and the lead characters vapid.

Without doubt the shiniest character here is a cosmetically-enhanced Wellington which stands in for San Francisco. Surpassing even the Capital’s unbeatable beauty on a “good day”, its steep streets are gloriously rendered as an apt fantasy world.

What a shame that the rest of the movie feels so flat.

Rating out of five:★★

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