I, ROBOT

* * * * (Guest review by Harrison Cheung, Movie Gurus) 

STARRING: Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell, Bruce Greenwood, Adrian L. Ricard, Chi McBride

2004, 115 Minutes, Directed by Alex Proyas

Will Smith movie anyone? Before you worry about a Bad Boys/Independence Day crassness, check this movie out. I, Robot is a thoughtful sci-fi movie with a surprising amount of heart.

Loosely based on the Isaac Asimov classic novel, I, Robot, as re-imagined by director Alex Proyas (The Crow) and screenwriter Jeff Vintar (Final Fantasy), is a smart action movie that looks like the world of Minority Report and has a message to tout. Will Smith stars as Detective Spooner, a man who has a prejudice against all things robotic in the Blade Runner Decker mode. He is asked to investigate an apparent suicide of the chief scientist at U.S. Robotics (presumably not the modem company) which is on the verge of releasing the NS-5, the latest, greatest robot model.

But as pieces of odd evidence fall into place, Spooner finds there's more at stake here than either a suicidal old man or an industrial accident. The robots are on the verge of a major upgrade and humans had better wake up and smell the roses.

I, Robot borrows from a lot of other movies, but regurgitates it with style. The Chicago of 2035 looks pretty much like today except with a few extra skyscrapers and lots of robot helpers. The cars look possibly like next year's models. The city is not as dark as say, Ridley Scott's smoke-filled, noirish Los Angeles but Spooner's messy 1950's apartment is bachelor cop cliché. The message here is that robots were invented to make life better. There are robot bartenders, short-order cooks, Fedex messengers and dog-walkers. This movie is thankfully devoid of the dourness of Proyas' other films - Dark City and The Crow.

But the other message in what could have been simple summer movie froth is the danger of creating an entirely new class of servants. It's a message that was in the Asimov book and Vintar's script touches on some parallels about race. When a robot runs down the street with a woman's purse, Spooner gives chase only to find that the robot was trying to get some medication to its owner. This is a classic sci-fi theme. Remember Planet of the Apes?

Will Smith is admirably toned down from his bigger-than-life showboat characters. It's the first Will Smith movie where he's confident enough in his star power that he doesn't have to overwhelm the scenery. His Spooner is a man with a complicated past, and real and mental scars that continues to haunt his police skills. He meets a scientist at USR played by Bridget Moynahan who defends her work fiercely until she meets Sonny (Alan Tudyk), an apparently sentient robot that is far and beyond the original NS-5 programming.

Police movie? Action movie? Sci-fi epic? I, Robot is all of these things without the heavy-handed preaching of 2010, Mission To Mars or A.I. Like good science fiction, the movie teaches by example, not by lecture. It's like Blade Runner as an action movie and the transformation works well.
 

(Guest reviewer Harrison Cheung is a regular writer for Movie Gurus. Reviews of several regular contributors to The Sci-Fi Page appear on this site - go there now!)

If this had been a 1970s movie starring Charlton Heston as a misanthropic cop who actually sees the point in robots taking over the planet, then it would probably have been more interesting. Here it’s just a cop procedural/action flick with a climax taken straight from a videogame . . . (* * ½) — James O'Ehley
 

• Read a mixed review of I, Robot.
• Read an article which compares the novel with the movie here.