I, Robot



What if the Terminator was a consumer product? That's the question posed by I, Robot, a new action movie "suggested" by the stories of Isaac Asimov. It is a respectable jab at a sci-fi action movie undone by an under-thought script.


"I'm sorry, 'getting jiggy wit it' does not compute."

The year is 2035, and robots are ubiquitous, doing all sorts of manual labor. Del Spooner (Will Smith) is a cop who is itching to prove that robots are bad in some way, even though no robot has ever committed a crime. The inventor most responsible for the current robot technology apparently jumps to his death from his lab on the 20th floor of the company that's getting ready to roll out the new generation of domestic robot, but leaves behind an enigmatic message specifically for Spooner. Spooner finds evidence that the inventor may have been thrown through the window by "Sonny,' a customized robot the inventor had in his lab that appears able to operate without the restrictions of Asimov's famous three laws. Spooner tries to convince everyone around him, including the head of the robotics company and his own superiors in the police force that robots are capable of violence, while at the same time robots around him seem to be trying to kill him. Spooner eventually befriends Susan Calvin (Bridget Moyanahan, the other, less perky Sandra Bullock), a scientist who works on the robots, and convinces her that the roll-out of the new generation of robots will be a disaster.

It's tough to deny the entertainment value of watching Will Smith in a film like this, and director Alex Proyas is a visual fantasist of the first order. The film moves at a good clip and the action scenes are great. But the writing is so bad it kept distracting me. Spooner's hatred of robots has a ridiculous basis, and is even more bizarre considering a neat surprise the movie pulls about halfway through. Also, how likely is that robots could be around for years and no one had figured out how to commit crimes with them? These elements, and the identity of the real villain, are just plain old lazy screenwriting. I also had trouble shaking off the feeling that I, Robot was basically a combination of Patlabor: The Movie (1990), and a certain 1947 short story by Jack Williamson.

Posted: Sun - July 25, 2004 at      

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