It could have been better, had it not been a 'Will Smith movie.'

Rating: 6/10 (4 October 2005)

(Note, there are some minor spoilers in this.) First off, I'd just like to point out that I have nothing personal against Will Smith. He's witty and charming, and I know he's capable of acting. However, he *is* typecast worse than John Wayne. All due respect to Mr. Smith, but in the end he's only really played two characters in all of the movies and television he's done... the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and a slightly tougher version of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (for his action movies). The only exception I can think of is "Six Degrees of Separation," in which he starred to show that he had range... which was then ignored by studio producers as it wasn't much of a box office smash.
No matter how the studio tries to dress it up, "I, Robot" is an action movie. It's not only an action movie, but it's a "Will Smith movie" in the same sense that movies with Adam Sandler screaming at people and inflicting seemingly-random pseudo-slapstick violence are "Adam Sandler movies." It has a decent story, nice premise, and all that. A robot appears to have killed a human being in violation of the Asimov Laws. A cop who's paranoid about robots winds up working with one of the robot's creators to solve the mystery. And there is a mystery to be solved, indeed. However, the studio seems to think that the only thing the mystery needs is a bunch of random, over-the-top fight scenes with lots of pretty special effects.
All I kept thinking when I saw this movie is "It could have been better." It's not a terrible movie (I've seen and enjoyed worse), but I can't call it a good one with a straight face because I keep seeing that it could have been better. They could have toned down or dropped a lot of the overdone action sequences and kept this closer to a mystery centered on the characters. But they couldn't do that, because this is a "Will Smith movie" and people want to see Will Smith doing stunts with the same sarcastic smile and dialogue he's been milking for the last decade or so.
I think one of the most telling things about this movie comes from a recent conversation a friend of mine and I had about it. I asked him if it was sad or geeky that I was able to figure out the "save humanity from itself" angle of the First Law long before it was revealed in the film. He said to me "That just means you're not part of the movie's target audience."
Not a terrible movie, but it could have been a lot better if the filmmakers had stuck with the story and not made it an action flick. Of course, if they did that, then people would probably see it as "too sci-fi" even if it were a vast improvement. But that's a "lowest common denominator" problem, and beyond the scope of this review.