Producers: Devin Keaton, Robert Rippberger, Martin Medina, Jay Burnley and KT Kent    Director: Robert Rippberger   Screenplay: Luke Medina, Martin Medina, Robert Rippberger and David Largman Murray   Cast: Frankie Muniz, Violett Beane, Taylor Gray, Craig Lamar Traylor, Estes Tarver and Marcia Gay Harden   Distributor: Seismic Releasing

Grade: C-

The development of AI has progressed so rapidly that current events make a picture like “Renner,” which aims for a putatively prophetic sci-fi feel, seem positively quaint.  Of course, even if the script were smarter, the modestly-budgeted execution would undermine the picture, which moves from character study to would-be thriller to something like torture porn.  You can appreciate the effort, but the result falls short.

Frankie Muniz, who’s been making a gingerly return to acting after largely stepping back since his TV series “Malcolm in the Middle” ended in 2006 (a revival is now in the works), takes the title role here as a young tech wiz who’s sadly uptight, as are many such nerdy types in movies.  He’s created an AI “life coach,” a big round eyeball called Salenus, reminiscent of HAL-9000 but speaking in a feminine voice that’s far from the seductive one Scarlett Johansson lent to Spike Jonze’s “Her” (2013).  Instead, in the tones of Marcia Gay Harden, Salenus is rather maternal, in a brusquely authoritative way.

Renner has fashioned Salenus to help him become more confident and assertive, but in actuality the device controls him to a large extent, telling him how to dress, overseeing his morning ablutions, and directing him to keep his sparsely furnished apartment scrupulously clean.  It’s programmed, we will learn, after his recently deceased mother, who was, as he describes her, a fanatical control freak under whose thumb his mousy persona was formed. 

It goes without saying that Renner lives alone in a largely empty building, devoid of friends and certainly female companionship.  He goes to an unspecified job carrying a big metal briefcase into which he regularly transfers Salenus (after removing it from a floor safe), and apparently survives on carry-out. 

He’s also refuses to sell the code he’s invented for Salenus, determined to keep its supposedly groundbreaking algorithm to himself.  Of course, he’s as dependent on it as he was on his mother while she lived.  But he intends to rely on it to help him introduce himself to his new—and apparently only—neighbor, Jamie (Violett Beane), an ebullient, friendly, and decidedly pretty girl who’s moved in across the hall.  He contrives to meet her when she returns from a run, and invites her over for dinner.

Unfortunately, she brings along her roommate Chad (Taylor Gray), a rude, condescending boor whom Renner takes to be her boyfriend, though he turns out to be her slacker brother.  Despite the guy’s intrusiveness, a romance blossoms between Renner and Jamie, and he’s hopeful it will progress to something major.

Naturally Salenus raises doubts about her sincerity and motives.  Its warnings become increasingly adamant, and Renner begins to unravel emotionally as he suspects that the device could be right about the girl.  When his precious code is endangered, he reacts with uncharacteristic violence, and though in the end it appears that he and Jamie have a chance at happiness, it’s not to be.  As for Salenus, it proves to be as stable and reliable as HAL was.

One can be impressed by the futuristic look production designer brings to the building hallway and Renner’s apartment, and cinematographer Sean Emer uses the limited locations to create a decidedly claustrophobic effect.  Rony Barrak contributes an unsettling score, and Gabriel Cullen editing that’s languid for the first hour before joining Emer’s camerawork to ratchet up the excitement in the third act. The VFX is adequate.

Beane makes an effective femme who’s perhaps fatale, and Gray a convincing cad.  And Muniz definitely tries very hard, although his initial milquetoast is more persuasive than his anger-fueled avenger.  He deserves credit for stretching, but the result is more effortful than natural. 

But no one could have overcome the essential implausibility of “Renner”—the notion that anyone might be willing to spend lots of money and go to great lengths to acquire the secret behind a device that in today’s world almost seems antique.  MacGuffins needn’t be entirely believable, but they must possess enough credibility to make you overlook their essential absurdity.

In short, the reality of AI has already rendered Salenus obsolete, and “Renner” proves as defective as its central gimmick winds up being.

Incidentally, there’s a post-credits scene that isn’t all that clever, but if you’ve watched the movie and are willing to continue through a rather long scroll, be aware that it’s there.