I, ROBOT
RATING: 6/10
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PLOT:
The year is 2035 and a new line of robots are about to be placed in many
human
homes in order to help make our lives that much easier. One cop, however,
suspects that something may be amiss with the new robots and attempts to
link
one of them to an actual human murder, something against which they are
programmed. A shot of Will Smith's ass in the shower...ensues.
CRITIQUE:
Damn! I was really looking forward to this film blowing my nuts clean off,
but
instead, was treated to a decent summer sci-fi romp that is likely to be
forgotten by my already-burned-out braincells once I get to the end of
this
review. The film's biggest problem? The story. I wasn't expecting a BLADE
RUNNER, a MINORITY REPORT or even a DARK CITY in terms of its scope and
intrigue, but I definitely wanted more than a "cop on the chase" movie
with
little more than cryptic clues left for him to figure out over humorous
quips
and disapproval by all around him. If you hate watching movies in which
the
lead character is so very obviously "on to something", but everybody else
treats him like a moron or a paranoid freak until about 5 minutes before
all
hell breaks loose, you're likely to be pulling out your hair about halfway
through this movie, as everybody but the lead character seems oblivious to
many
extremely obvious gaffes in the robotic program. Story issues aside (and
yes,
the man behind BATMAN & ROBIN is half of the screenwriting team here), the
film
did still manage to blow me away with much of its sci-fi-ness, its
ultra-cool
robots, punchy action sequences (the underground tunnel car crash sequence
was
awesome), slick directing, memorable score and a believable futuristic
environment that slipped me right into the world in which all of these
kooky
happenings were occurring. In fact, pretty much any scene featuring the
robots,
particularly the lead robot "Sonny", was engaging in both its visual
aspect and
in terms of interest to the story. I wish they would spent more time with
them,
as opposed to the back-and-forths with Moynahan's consistently skeptical
character, which got a little tiring after a while. And incidentally, if
you're
gonna show me Will Smith's ass in the shower (it's all good), show me the
lovely Ms. M's as well, for God's sakes!
One other aspect that had me worried before seeing this movie was its
possible
over-emphasis on "Will Smith humor", but other than a few odd one-liners
("Now
that's just stupid!"-funny), it wasn't necessarily over-played. I do still
wish
the film wasn't played "jokey" at all though, and a dark, edgier movie had
been
made with the terrific source material and eye-popping effects, but
unfortunately this is a "Hollywood movie" and even though it does feature
a
number of grim sequences, it never really leaves its safe haven, with a
"cutesy" grandma tossed in to cushion the blows and an extremely useless
Shia
Laboeuf character tossed in for target marketing purposes. Bruce
Greenwood,
playing his usual role of the "Canadian Tax Credit", is also wasted in a
handful of scenes (seemingly shot on the same day) and doesn't really lend
much
suspense to the film as the only real suspect around. At the end of the
day,
you're basically strolling from one eye-candy scene to the next, with
Smith
trying to convince everyone that he's not nuts in between action sequences
and
characters speaking about the "3 laws" over and over again, until shit
hits the
fan and a pretty damn sweet finale caps it all off. Now despite being
impressed
with the film's final combat sequences (gimme a robot vs robot fight
anytime!),
I didn't particularly care with how the film was "resolved", but did
appreciate
its top-notch effect work throughout, as well as those damn cool robots!!
(or
did I mention that already?) All in all, I can't say that this movie
turned out
to be the dark, kick-ass, sci-fi classic motion picture for which I was
hoping,
but it was still a damn good time with plenty of fun action sequences to
help
you forget about its obvious run-of-the-mill plotline.
Where's JoBlo coming from?
A.I. (8/10) - Bicentennial Man (6/10) - The Chronicles of Riddick (7/10) -
Dark
City (9/10) - Johnny Mnemonic (2/10) - The Matrix (8/10) - Men in Black
(7/10)
- Minority Report (8/10)
Review Date: July 12, 2004
Director: Alex Proyas
Writers: Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman
Producers: John Davis, Topher Dow, Laurence Mark
Actors: Will Smith as Del Spooner
Bridget Moynahan as Susan Calvin
Bruce Greenwood as Lawrence Robertson
Genre: Science-Fiction
Year of Release: 2004
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(c) 2004 Berge Garabedian
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X-RAMR-ID: 38260
X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1297362
X-RT-TitleID: 1134097
X-RT-SourceID: 573
X-RT-AuthorID: 1021
X-RT-RatingText: 6/10
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