Overall Rating
 Awesome: 8.67%
Worth A Look: 23.47%
Average: 35.2%
Pretty Bad: 22.45%
Total Crap: 10.2%
11 reviews, 130 user ratings
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| I, Robot |
by Kevin Thomas
"I, Average"
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What is this desire that Hollywood has to dumb down anything that might leave people, I don’t know, thinking? What are they so scared of? I mean, no matter what this movie would have you believe, a world where humanoid robots are an integrated part of our society is not thirty years away, so letting the audience mull over the concept is hardly going to upset any upcoming business revolutions.Though I won’t take you on a step by step guide of the plot, I will let you know that in the opening ten minutes you will have seen enough of Smith’s toned bod to last you a lifetime, and enough product placements to make the average teen movie blush. I’d heard it was bad, but I was taken aback. When he wakes up, he spends a VERY LONG TIME staring at his shiny JVC stereo, before getting a nice FED-EX package (nice lingering shot of the box) containing his brand new Converse trainers (vintage 2004; that’s right folks, they’re IN SHOPS NOW); a pair of trainers which then go on to have a bigger role than half the supporting cast and then gets into his futuristic Audi to drive to work. I know a movie like this would need a big budget, but there’s a line. I mean, surely the pitch (get this - ‘Will Smith fights a big fucking army of robots’) alone would secure a plentiful budget?
But once you’re completely reassured that all your favourite brands will still be around in the hundreds of years in the future that this looks like it is set in, something hits you. This is only meant to be thirty years in the future! THIRTY! Compare our world to the world of thirty years ago; bad fashion sense, crummy music and a handful of excellent sci-fi movies. What hasn’t happened though, is a complete and utter revolution of almost every aspect of society. Even the Internet, which has had by far the greatest impact on our society, has not had such a ridiculously visible effect It’s not too hard to maybe, at a stretch, think that humanoid robots are a possibility. But it’s a big stretch to imagine that and to imagine that they would anything less than Top-Secret military projects causing havoc in an underground research facility is even harder. Imagining that they are commonplace commodities walking the streets, cleaning up rubbish and being sold to the general public is almost impossible. It wouldn’t be too bad if it stopped there either, but that’s only the beginning. Cars drive themselves anywhere you want them to, strange arms come out of walls to grab said cars and place them in vertical car park spaces, the sci-fi staple of the scan-able police badges makes an appearance and absolutely EVERYTHING seems to be mechanised and computerised. Even harder to swallow than this is how fast all humans seem to have lost touch with the ‘old’ way of doing things. Humans stand agog in front of old fashioned stereos, unable to perform simple tasks like pressing ‘Play’ if they can’t operate it by voice. Thirty years might seem like a long time to the fifteen-year-old target audience (in fact, most probably picture themselves being dead or, worse, GROWN UP by then), but the idea that entire fabric of society could be so massively revolutionised, with all the older ways completely forgotten, in thirty years is a bit of a push.
But, eventually, these ludicrous constructs stop being so grating. The story is actually interesting enough for such factors to fade away into the back of you mind. Set piece after set piece plays out brilliantly. A long chase through an empty tunnel (a tunnel that was packed out with traffic a mere twenty minutes earlier, but this is the least of the ridiculous plot holes) whilst swarms of robots attack Spooner (Smith) in his not-so-shiny Audi is excellently paced. It is certainly one of the more successful action pieces of recent times, and it is only one of at least three pretty damn good pieces.
Smith outshines the rest of the cast with ease, which is actually a shame. Smith is at his best when he has a similarly skilled comedic actor to play off. He has his fair share of one-liners, but banter is his true skill. The fact that his most capable co-star is a cat is a sign of some serious problems on the casting couch. You can almost see the desperation in his Smith’s eyes as he desperately searches his co-stars’ eyes for some flicker of presence. Instead, all he gets is a disinterested array of faces so cardboard that Keanu Reeves actually looks emotional. Then again, I, Robot is not meant to be a funny story, so maybe it’s not that bad a thing that Smith doesn’t get to spend the whole time goofing off with his co-stars.
Which brings us to the story that it is based upon. I won’t try and pretend that I have and start ripping off other people’s criticisms; I have not read the story. However, I know from past experience that saying that a movie was ‘based’ upon a certain book/novel means that the directors can do pretty much whatever the hell they want with the story. When the credits roll, the brilliant line ‘Suggested by the novel ‘I, Robot’ by Isaac Asimov’ appears on screen. If Steven King’s ‘The Running Man’ can be royally butchered into the Arnie movie and still be allowed to be credited with being ‘Based upon the novel’, God knows what kind of massacring ‘Suggested by’ entails. From what I’ve heard from various sources, the only things that made of from page to screen are Asimov’s famous three laws of robotics and the title. However, the storyline is pleasantly engaging. The tale of whether or not it was possible for robots to override the three laws and kill a human moves along at a swift pace and throws in just enough twists and turns to keep your head up. True, some of the twists seem unnecessary and aren’t really explored enough to make them worthy additions to the plot, but there’s more than enough to keep you interested, even if not totally satisfied.Those expecting a wonderful realisation of a brilliant man’s dreams in fancy CGI (and it is very fancy CGI; the whole thing looks utterly wonderful) will be disappointed. Those expecting two hours of fighting robots, big explosions and a few cracking one-liners will get a lot more than they bargained for. Just go for a good time and you’ll have one, as sometimes expectations are a bad thing.
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link directly to this review at http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=10202&reviewer=368
originally posted: 08/09/04 06:27:19
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USA
16-Jul-2004 (PG-13)
DVD: 24-May-2005
UK
N/A
Australia
22-Jul-2004
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