director
Alex Proyas
screen story
Jeff Vintar
screenwriters
Jeff Vintar
Akiva Goldsman
suggested
by the story collection by
Isaac Asimov
producers
John Davis
Topher Dow
Laurence Mark
cinematographer
Simon Duggan
music
Marco Beltrami
editors
Jeffrey Ford
William Hoy
Richard Learoyd
Armen Minasian
cast
Will Smith (Del Spooner)
Bridget Moynahan (Susan Calvin)
Alan Tudyk (Sonny)
James Cromwell (Dr. Alfred Lanning)
Bruce Greenwood (Lawrence Robertson)
Adrian L. Ricard (Granny)
Chi McBride (Lt. John Bergin)
Fiona Hogan (V.I.K.I.)
mpaa rating: PG-13
running
time: 114m
u.s.
release: 7/16/04
video
availability: TBA
official
website
other alex
proyas films
reviewed on this website:
- the
crow
- dark
city
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Increasing
computerization and robotization are going to decentralize the
world. The fields will allow everybody to absorb and retain information,
while passing on the three classifications of undesirable labor
-- the dull, the dirty, and the dangerous -- to robots and computers.
This will give us more time for more creative endeavors.
That was Isaac Asimov back
in 1989, predicting how we'd be living in 1999. (It's almost
touchingly naïve; who has more time for creative endeavors,
or uses the time for that if they have it?) The late science-fiction
godhead (and all-around scholar) Asimov had a definite robot
fetish; he coined the word "robotics," and he produced
a sizable chunk of fiction on the subject of artificial intelligence.
Some of his robot stories were collected in the book I, Robot,
and Harlan Ellison wrote a legendary (and unproduced) screenplay
adaptation. With the release of the new movie calling itself
I, Robot -- decidedly not based on that screenplay
-- Ellison must be grinding his teeth and Asimov spinning his
way to China through his grave.
Making a Will Smith action
flick called I, Robot is a little like making a Bruce
Willis vehicle in which he heroically saves a bunch of people
during the Dresden bombing and calling it Slaughterhouse-Five.
Smith is known as Del Spooner here, but he's essentially just
this year's variation on himself: a cocky, tough, wisecracking
cop (or agent or pilot) pitted against this summer's sci-fi menace.
Which, in this case, is a robot that seems to have disregarded
the Three Laws that all robots are programmed to follow. (The
short version: Don't hurt humans, allow them to be hurt, disobey
human orders, or allow yourself to be destroyed.) An elderly
robotics guru (James Cromwell) ends up as lobby pizza -- did
he fall out his window, or was he pushed? And if he was pushed,
who else was in the room with him? Nobody except a curiously
emotional robot named Sonny (voice by Alan Tudyk).
It's apparent fairly early
on that this I, Robot won't detain itself with questions
about AI ethics or philosophy. It starts as a whodunit, with
Spooner as the bitter cop with a murder theory, which no one
believes because he has an Issue With Robots. We're meant to
side with him, because the robots' defense team includes dry-ice
programmer Bridget Moynihan and corporate honcho Bruce Greenwood,
who I expected to be addressed by a concerned robot: "You
are in serious danger of being typecast as a callous Stupid White
Man. For the safety of your career, please proceed in a calm
fashion to the nearest Atom Egoyan casting call."
The movie is at least a bit
less annoying than director Alex Proyas' previous two genre attempts,
The
Crow and Dark
City, both of which have won unaccountable cred in goth
and techno-geek circles. Where is his much-vaunted poetic vision
when he really needs it? Proyas keeps the action percolating,
but really there's not much anyone can do with scenes involving
throngs of coolly malevolent robots converging on a crowd of
scrappy Chicagoans. I looked at the robots at each turn and could
see only computer-generated images, not plausible constructions
of metal and plastic occupying real space. Even Spooner, part
metal himself, doesn't escape the impersonal march of the narrative.
He goes through the usual paces -- the Give Me Your Badge scene,
the I Love My Grandma scene, and even, God help us, the I'm Rescuing
a Cat scene.
I'm actually divided about
the movie's use of the title I, Robot. It's going
to irritate Asimov fans, but it might -- just might -- point
younger readers towards the stories, and it's given Bantam an
excuse to re-issue the book in an attractive new hardcover edition.
I wish I were optimistic enough to believe in an Asimov resurgence,
though -- my feeling is that the target audience is busy with
Harry Potter books and Spider-Man comics -- and Asimov's own
vision of 1999 haunts me after having seen this film. Yes, computers
have made it easier to make movies like this, in which thousands
of robots leap and twirl and fight. They sure haven't done much
for creative endeavors, though -- not on the evidence of this
screenplay.
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