I, Robot DVD > Reviews > I liked I ROBOT, but I didn't quite love it.

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Liked it
Story	Satisfactory
Characters / Performances	Satisfactory
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Special effects, action
Disadvantages:	Derivative story and spoiled twists .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Will Smith plays a chicago cop in the year 2035 in the hyped sci-fi thriller "I, Robot".

I Robot is a surprising smash hit and a pretty interesting but derivative sci-fi thriller. The movie has you guessing for the first moments of the film but then ends up spoiling the movie by revealing surprise twists to early and the movie from then on has no choice but to bombard you with the usual standard action stuff.

The movie is about Smith playing a cop investigating the murder of a high profiled doctor working for US Robotics a man named Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell). It seems Detective Spooner has a real dislike for living in the future and most specifically the robots designed by US Robotics who are now populating Chicago.

If you never seen any of Will Smith's movies you be put of by his constant sarcasm and somewhat lame jokes designed to get a cheap laugh here and there, it's vintage Will Smith. All of his movies have characters that are sarcastic, emotional volatile , highly outspoken and downright annoying. "Wild Wild West", "Independence Day", " Enemy of the State", these are all great movies with Smith playing the anti hero of sorts, he doesn't pull of the roles convincingly and that's because Smith is a way playing himself, since he is known to be abrasive and a bit of a loudmouth in real life too.

Anyways though he still to a certain point manages to carry the film on his shoulders, when he cannot the awesome special effects come in to save the day and audience from Smith's somewhat tacky character. Spooner in his investigation involving the deceased doctor eventually meets the head honcho of US Robotics, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood). Greenwood is used to playing the bad guy, the heel and he delivers another good performance. Of course Mr. Robertson denies his robots are a detriment to mankind. Of course it doesn't take long for Snooper to show otherwise, however, in the process he makes himself a target by the robots themselves and he must stay alive to expose this conspiracy of bad robots out to take over the world..

Another star in the film which I didn't feel was needed but served as I believe for the young guys watching this movie was Bridget Moyanhan as Susan Calvin who is the shrink for the robots (If you can believe that ) and acts to repair them psychically too with her programming skills. Calvin is only there to serve as the skeptic really, the one who despite some of the building evidence showing the conspiracy still finds it hard to believe that a robot can kill since the robots are built to obey laws. Spooner then even when confronted with these laws is able to show the potential loopholes in them and over time convinces Calvin that his assumptions are right and that she is a just a puppet for US Robotics being used to dish out lies while US Robotics carries it’s real agenda behind closed doors..

Well for the most part I liked "I, ROBOT" the movie is beautifully edited and those special effects and action sequences, are delivered with great precision The showdowns Spooner has with these killer bots are a sight to see, especially that amazing car fight scene in the middle and that early fight in the beginning and the scenes near the end. I also liked how the movie starts out as a complex mystery. In the beginning we see some of Spooner's paranoia about robots whch helped build the suspense early because we didn't know if the robots were bad.

Spooner tries to arrest one of the robots early thinking the robot had stolen someone's purse, but it turns out otherwise. I think were the suspense falls a bit is where it is no longer a question whether it's a conspiracy or one man's paranoia. By this point, then the movie shifts gears from a psychological thriller of sorts, now it becomes a out a sci fi blast fest where we are more interested in seeing the action and the explosions and not the psychological messages.

Then again we've seen this tale about the future and how robots eventually built to better humanity are actually out to destroy humanity: Artificial Intelligence, Blade Runner, Terminator, these are all movies with similar plots like I, Robot. That is in effect why I just liked I, ROBOT instead of loving it, nothing new here as far as originality.

One thing that did nag after seeing the movie was having people sing the praises of Alex Proyas as the one who really made this entertaining technical marvel when I ROBOT has 9 creative minds serving as the "Producers" of the film. Most of which did high profile technical movies for example John Kilkenny has done the visual effects for such box office hits like "Titanic" and "Star Trek Insurrection" but no one has mentioned him. Everyone is giving the credit to Alex Proyas which I believe is unfair. A massive undertaking that was I, Robot couldn't be done solely by him.

Then comes the obvious Isaac Asimov references who is credited as being a writer for the movie when he died way before the movie was made.

Asimov is a famous author who wrote novels on robots and dreams. There is controversy of how Asimov's ideas and visions where used and changed for I,ROBOT, I can't really comment on this yet, since I've never read of his work. That hasn't stopped some critics from bashing I, ROBOT because of this reason, calling it unconvincing and pure crap.

All in all, still I,ROBOT accomplished what it had to do, it was released in the summer, made a ton of money and left some pretty good impressions after viewing it. It's loaded with millions of sci fi cliches from other robots movies, but it's still a pretty decent movie despite the flaws.