I, Robot
reviewed by Ryan Ellis
July 26, 2004
My Tagline--Robo-slaves are stealing our jobs!
Right off the bat, I was discouraged with 'I, Robot'. The movie wasn't a
starting-gate dud, but the opening shots of machines doing manual labour
were disheartening. If the wave of the future dictates that the privileged
will have their very own robo-slaves, are we not digging an even deeper
chasm between the rich & the poor? The movie could almost be saying, "You
can't afford to buy a machine to walk your dog, you poor schmuck? You must
not be rich like me." I wonder if it's in our best interests to put so
much
power into the hands of machines. Look what happened in the 'Terminator'
series and '2001: A Space Odyssey'. Isn't there already a job shortage? Do
we really need to spend billions in technology just to invent walking &
talking computers to do our work for us?
Fortunately, a small measure of vindication was mine when anti-android cop
Del Spooner (Will Smith, still looking as ripped as he did in 'Ali') asks
those same questions later in the picture. He's got a real hate-on for the
title characters, which is sort of justified during one of the quieter
moments. However, Spooner's explanation---and his touching story about why
he has a hard time keeping his left arm loose---just raise more questions.
Since some of the details of his back story would be classified as
spoilers
(unless I completely misunderstood what was going on…which is entirely
possible), I'll say no more. Maybe I'm just prejudiced against all
non-human
bipeds. Will Smith's character sure is. The star of this movie is a black
man who's got a racial hatred for white robots. Ironic, don't ya think?
So once I stopped dwelling on mankind's misuse of tech toys, I tried to
sink
into a story we've seen many times before. Smith is the Dirty Harry of
this
futuristic Chicago. He even has a moment where he must hand in his badge
and
then tries to save the day in "I'm right and you're all idiots for not
believing me" vigilante mode. Big Willie investigates when an old friend
and
computer genius, Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell, who does the best he can
with
a nothing part), seems to have committed suicide by leaping out a window.
Spooner has a prior relationship with this old codger and doesn't believe
that the brilliant compu-designer would ever try to fly through thick
glass.
He concludes that a specially made robot named Sonny (voiced by Alan
Tudyk)
is a murderer, which goes against Isaac Asimov's first rule in the "Three
Rules Of Robotics".
Bridget Moynahan also works for USR (the obscenely wealthy company that
makes the pseudo-humans) and she's caught in the middle of a battle
between
Spooner and company honcho, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood, who's
given
nothing to do except make you think he's completely responsible for all
the
bad stuff). Spooner apprehends Sonny after a difficult chase, quickly
learning that this robot is not as simple, docile, and easily controlled
as
the others have always been. But is he/it a killer? Is such a concept even
relevant if only humans can be charged with murder? What is the real
motive
for knocking off Lanning? And why does this one lone policeman have to
fight
off the aggressions of seemingly every robot in the city? Ah, questions
that
are hard to answer without giving away the movie's secrets…
Asimov is given screen credit (for writing the book), but no one in the
story ever bothers to mention his name when laying down the oft-discussed
"Three Rules". They are: robots can't allow harm to come to people; they
must obey any order given by a person unless it conflicts with Law #1; and
a
robot must protect itself as long as that doesn't interfere with the first
2
commandments. Sci-fi always finds a loophole, though. In fact, the villain
can make a strong case for following the guidelines quite literally,
despite
launching a coldly calculated insurrection. On the other hand, some heroic
androids prove to be pretty handy in a scrape. Bishop in 'Aliens' tries to
reassure the untrusting Ripley by explaining that first law, and then he
eventually proves that he's extraordinarily loyal and reliable. Yet he's
in
the minority because most tin men in the movies end up trying to kill us.
As
great as that is for dramatic tension, it furthers the notion that we
shouldn't continue giving so much control to bits & bytes.
Alex Proyas helms this ambitious picture and he doesn't find quite the
same
off-the-beaten-path tone that was the foundation of 'Dark City'. With that
flick, Proyas showed that he's a director who knows how to turn sci-fi
concepts on their ear. 'I, Robot' is fairly generic. I felt no passion for
the story, although it's hard not to like Will Smith, who's made a
glorious
career out of appealing to all demos. He's in modern hip-hop mode here, an
attitude that seems to be a relic in an era 30+ years into the future.
Smith
has quite literally put his action shoes on again and he's back in
familiar
territory with a big-budget F/X picture. He's the only actor who stands
above the myriad of visual tricks, and that's probably just because the
man
himself is so charismatic. Really, his character is not very interesting.
As
with '2001', I suppose the idea is to present humans who are more robotic
than the robots. The automatons actually exhibit human emotions like anger
and rage in red-bodied doses all throughout the movie, contrary to most of
the uptight business-minded nerds who have as much passion as a couch.
'I, Robot' doesn't have anything new to say about this genre, which is a
surprise from the likes of visionary Proyas. The budget might be 4 times
as
large compared to what he had to work with in 'Dark City', but he doesn't
do
much with the extra dough. Cheaper F/X might have been better. Even though
the robots have the agility of Spider-Man, there's something digi-fake
about
all their super-jumping. Oh, wait, they WERE all digital. Tudyk supplies
Sonny's voice, but the visually-effected character was shot the same way
Gollum was. They even used Tudyk's body as a guide for the CG character in
a
similar process to the one that gave us the beloved tragi-villain in
'LOTR'.
Considering Sonny is just a glorified C3PO, the filmmakers went to a lot
of
trouble to not surpass a live-action costume creation from 1977. The
further
F/X come, the less I'm impressed.
Screenwriters Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman didn't strain themselves to
come up with any sort of marvelous dialogue or character building. The
clothes of this script have been worn by other scripts and the tag is
showing. On the plus side, the movie isn't as relentlessly dumb as 'The
Day
After Tomorrow' or as listless as 'The Terminal'. Everything about 'I,
Robot' is competent and clean, no muss and no fuss. When Smith and his
buddies are racing to save the day in the busy climax, several motifs have
been repeated once or thrice and there are plenty of moderately exciting
payoffs.
Nevertheless, talented men like Proyas and Smith should have taken a
gamble
and stretched for something more. [Oh, stop your carping, critic man. This
is a summer movie, after all.] At least you ought to be trying hard to
figure out the mystery as laid out by the pre-death Lanning, which MUST
remain a mystery as long as it does. If clues weren't so cryptic, the jig
would be up and the villain would be out for blood much sooner.
Interesting
subplots or not, by the time everyone's true colours shine through, it's a
case of dotting the heroic Is and crossing the righteous Ts. Lessons are
learned and new alliances are forged. But there's something eerie in the
final shot of the movie. Even if Will Smith can, I'll never trust a robot
again.
To turn me into your robotic pet, write to flickershows@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
out my bits & bytes at http://groups.msn.com/TheMovieFiend
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