'Finch' review: Tom Hanks, a cute dog and a lovable robot — what more do you need?

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Tom Hanks stars as a dying robotics engineer named Finch, one of the last people left on the planet after a solar flare destroys the ozone layer.

Dying from radiation poisoning, Finch builds a robot so that someone will care for his dog Goodyear after he's gone.

The new movie "Finch," directed by Miguel Sapochnik (an Emmy winner for his work on "Game of Thrones"), follows Hanks, the robot named Jeff (wonderfully played by Caleb Landry Jones via motion capture) and Goodyear as they flee superstorms and other threats on a journey across the country.

The film, from a screenplay by Craig Luck and Ivor Powell, streams on Apple TV+ beginning on Friday.

MY SAY Tom Hanks, a cute dog and a lovable robot — "Finch" begins with such a promising recipe for success that it doesn't need much of a plot to go with it.

Only the hardest of hearts could resist such a trio. This is movie gold.

Hanks gets a teary monologue about how much the dog means to him. The filmmaker cuts to just the right amount of shots of Goodyear (played by an adorable pooch named Seamus) staring lovingly at his owner, or begging him to play, or crying and comforting him when he's sick.

Add into the mix Jeff, played by Landry Jones ("Get Out") with precocious innocence, peppering Finch with questions and desperately hoping to win his approval.

It's genuinely sweet and touching, and Sapochnik recognizes the extent to which this project must live and breathe via these central relationships.

But he surrounds Hanks, the robot and the dog with a sense of genuine menace. The barren wasteland of the United States as seen in "Finch" is not your everyday post-apocalyptic landscape, peppered with cosplaying extras.

It's a place where terrifying weather events can arrive at a moment's notice, sweeping across a terrain rife with signs of everyday life suddenly, horrifically disrupted. We see the detritus of abandoned big box stores and a hospital with X-rays taped to the windows, in an apparently futile effort to block out the menacing sun.

There's no relief on a beautiful day: without the ozone layer, simply standing in the warmth of sunlight melts your skin.

This is a rich dramatic world for any actor, but especially potent for a star like Hanks. The Hollywood legend is simply too great at his job to even need a conventional co-star. He's no stranger to flying solo on a film set, having famously built up a powerful bond with a volleyball in "Cast Away."

Here, Hanks puts his everyman charisma to perfect use. He provides the emotional texture required to make this picture resonate as much more than a spectacle of effects and production design. In his hands, it becomes a story of sacrifice and commitment, a portrait of humanity at its best, even at the end of the world.

BOTTOM LINE Tom Hanks, a cute dog and a lovable robot — what more do you need?