Set in 2035, Will Smith plays detective Del Spooner, who
works homicide in the Chicago Police department. Spooner is something of a
nostalgia freak, wearing sneakers and listening to music from the prehistoric
age of 2004. He also has a deep prejudice against robots, which, in this society
are everywhere. Robots are the house servants, the garbage collectors and the
dog walkers of this age; they now do all the dangerous and unseemly jobs that
humans no longer bother with. Their worldwide acceptance and use is the result
of U.S. Robotics, a mega-corporation that was co-founded by Alfred Lanning, the
genius who created the Three Laws Of Robotics, which set the standard of safety
by which all robots behave.
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Spooner gets called to the U.S. Robotics main corporate headquarters when
Lanning is found dead in the lobby, having fallen several stories from his office.
All signs point to a suicide, yet Spooner is suspicious. There were no
indication that Lanning had previously suffered from depression, and the company
was never doing better. In fact, U.S. Robotics is just a few days away from
unveiling the NS-5, a far more advanced robot designed to replace all of their
previous models. Teaming up with Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), a robotic
scientist working for the company, Spooner discovers that the windows through
which Lanning supposedly leapt through were made of safety glass, which would
have been impossible for an elderly man like him to break. The answer to his
suspicions comes in the form of an NS-5 named Sonny (voiced by Alan Tudyk), who
is hiding in Lanning's office. Disobeying Calvin's commands to deactivate, Sonny
deftly eludes capture by Spooner and escapes through the window. Creating a
crater in the floor where he lands in the lobby, Sonny escapes the pursuing
Spooner by getting lost in the crowd outside. Spooner and Calvin are now not
only faced with a renegade robot loose in Chicago, but also with the baffling
mystery of how a robot like Sonny could ignore the Three Laws Of Robotics and
kill a human being in the first place.
I have to admit, I was ready to hate this one. But it's not as bad as I
originally thought it would be. Perhaps credit for that could go to director
Alex Proyas, who also helmed the fantasy classic Dark City. Under his guidance,
"I, Robot" moves along at a brisk pace and with a degree of sophistication that
I did not expect. The problem is that although a genuinely interesting mystery
has been set up within the first hour, it isn't long before the film devolves
into the typical Hollywood action flick with things exploding and guns blazing.
This is a shame, especially since it invokes the name of the late, great science
fiction writer Isaac Asimov by using the title and the Three Laws Of Robotics
from his famous short story collection--you would think the film would go all the way
and try to resolve the mystery more intelligently than by taking the less
challenging "Rambo" route.
Still, Smith and Moynahan are engaging in their roles, and the production design,
along with the special effects, are superb. The slim special features on the DVD
include commentary by Director Proyas, and screenwriter Akiva Goldsman, a short
"making of" featurette, and a still gallery. "I, Robot" is far from the epic,
exigent science fiction tale that the legendary Harlan Ellison script was.
Yet if this movie were called "I Hate Robots", or any title other than "I,
Robot", it would be accepted as just what it is: a fun popcorn flick. --SF