Good for what it is

Rating: Null/10 (6 December 2004)

Being a fan of Asimov and having read all the Robot novels and short stories I was interested to see how this would turn out when I heard it was being made and was a separate story in the mold of a Robot short story. Having now watched the film I was on the whole pleased, it was overall a good film with no major weaknesses. Will Smith is good in this type of role (Bad Boys, Enemy of the State) and doesn't disappoint, Susan Calvin however was a typical "Hollywood" casting job, maybe I need to re-read the short stories but I always imagined Susan Calvin as more of a typical female scientist type, something along the lines of a (heterosexual) scientist version of Ellen DeGeneres, but casting hot-looking women as the scientist seems to be the established order...
The whole murder plot was really what carried the film and made it interesting, and disposing of robot control made for a good climax. I felt I had seen the "A.I. imprisoning humans to protect them from any possible harm" thing before, more than once, that was the only real area where the writing let me down. With these sorts of films (eg. Paycheck) I'm willing to sit back and enjoy the ride rather than look out for inconsistencies, as long as they're minor I'm willing to overlook them. I, Robot gets a thumbs up from me and I hope to see more science fiction adaptions of this standard in the future (perhaps a tad higher).