Science fiction being perhaps my choice if forced to pick one type of fiction to read, and certainly the first ‘adult’ books I read prodigously as a child, I read the original Asimov novels and short stories early on. As others have remarked the Good Doctor had his weaknesses as a writer but a shortage of ideas and situations in which to deploy them were not problems at all for him; the bulk of his great works were written between 1939 and the early 1960s and his sharp eye moved easily from newspaper and journal pages to fiction.
The movie Alex Proyas and Jeff Vintar made called I, Robot began life as an original script by Vintar called Hardwired and in that mysterious process Hollywood calls development was merged with the rights Twentieth Century Fox owned to Asmiov’s works. Accordingly the movie gives Isaac Asimov only a suggested by credit and, other than a few character names and constant reference to the Three Laws of Robotics, little really connects the two. Put it down to old human emotional response but I would have enjoyed the movie more if they’d stuck with Vintar’s title.
Trying to judge the movie by what’s on the screen then. Will Smith is the lead, a police detective who still has nightmares over a car accident in which he nearly drowned, a little girl in the other car did, and he was saved by a robot. He’s called to the scene of an apparent suicide of the main designer/inventor of the robots, who helped him recover from that accident, and who left Smith a holographic recording which is not a suicide note but does have a small database which can respond to Smith’s questions in a limited way.
Our copper doesn’t believe this was a suicide. Even though no person could’ve killed Dr. Lanning, the security records quickly show it, and no robot could so much have hurt him–that would violate the First Law–Smith suspects a robot did it. Of course US Robotics’ chief scientist Susan Calvin (played moderately well by standard Hollywood hottie Bridget Moynahan) will hear nothing of it and when Smith takes the robot to the station for questioning, semi-villanous USR CEO (Bruce Greenwood) shows up in 30 seconds with a court order and the mayor on the line to reclaim his property. Seriously, could police leiutenant Chi McBride be any more generic? We go on from there following the too predictable breadcrumbs and red herrings until Smith and a converted Calvin have won the day.
I, Robot is a big, pretty movie with special effects that do honestly stand out from an otherwise ordinary couple of hours. The NS-5 robots truly impress visually and in how they’re able to move, and the car chase between a couple of robotic robot transports and Smith in a 2039 Audi is almost as good. But a live action movie that credits an order of magnitude more people for visual effects and stunts than for acting almost certainly means too much effort on one than the other and Smith has the only part meaty enough to make a difference but he gives a here for the paycheck only performance.
I have a bit of trouble blaming Proyas, whose main previous significant work is the cult classic Dark City, for not being able to fully control a film with a ridiculous nine figure budget. Some of the producers though, like Laurence Mark and John Davis who have plenty off big picture experience, should have done better for a film that ought to have connected with the science fiction fan base in the same way Lord of the Rings and some of the recent comic book superhero movies did.
barely recommended
BillSaysThis 