The Moose Hole - Review of I, Robot

Rating: 4/10 (16 July 2004)

What happened to the Big Willie America first fell in love with many summers ago? The former rapper and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air became the king of the sci-fi action genre with two back-to-back box office hits, Independence Day and Men In Black, after first making an image for himself on the big screen in Bad Boys, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. So what happened? Wild, Wild West, an unmitigated embarrassment for all those involved, went on to be one of the biggest box office flops of 1999 and forced Smith to concentrate on more low key roles in films like Ali and The Legend of Bagger Vance until the fallout from the disaster flick had passed over. Will Smith re-emerged on the summer scene with Men In Black II in 2002 and Bad Boys II in 2003, and though they weren't as critically, or even publicly, hailed as much as his earlier works, he proved once again that he was a box office draw when it came to a film's opening weekend, which is all that seems to matter now adays with fewer leggy films popping up at the box office.
The story centers on one paranoid cop sent to investigate the first recorded murder committed by a robot. In the year 2035, the future of humanity is as bright and efficient as ever imagined. During this time, robots, once thought improbable several years ago, are now an every day commodity. In fact, the largest robotics distribution company in the world, USR, is set to launch its most highly advanced robot to date, the NS-5, to nearly every home in America. The shipment is so large that experts claim that there will be one robot for every five humans. To optimists this seems like a marvelous dream come true but to others, namely Detective Del Spooner, this is nothing short of a nightmare. After a freak accident several years earlier that left him haunted with images of the terrible event every night when he goes to bed, Detective Spooner has grown paranoid with the idea of humanity becoming too dependent on robots. One day, he is sent to investigate the 'apparent' suicide of Dr. Miles Hogenmiller, the man who created the Three Laws of Robotics and worked extensively with the NS-5 robots at the USR headquarters. Spooner dismisses the idea that Hogenmiller would kill himself and implicates a robot named Sonny who was found hiding in Hogenmiller's office and fled when the detective tried to question him. Everyone believes Detective Spooner has lost his mind for a robot can not bring harm to a human being since that would be a direct violation of the first Law of Robotics. If this were a violation of that law then there would be nothing to prevent the robots from turning against humanity and taking control of the world. Unfortunately, after a series of complicated events involving the NS-5 robots, Detective Spooner becomes more and more convinced that his once thought overwhelming paranoia may be the truth. The story for I, Robot, which was based on the 'I, Robot' anthology written by Isaac Asimov, is nothing more then the regurgitation of every other science fiction film with the concept of robots taking control of the world and destroying humanity. The difference with I, Robot is that the filmmakers lace the script with so much pretentious humor that most of it comes off flat and ultimately distracting from the film's supposed serious concept.
One of the biggest compliments attributed to I, Robot is its concept of a relatively small cast, allowing the focus of the audience to center on the its main characters rather then distracting them with numerous side-characters that do nothing but clog up an already complex storyline. But that's where the kudos stop with several of those characters coming off as flawed or seriously misguided by the script. Will Smith, once again in his summer block-buster mode, gives an engaging performance as Detective Del Spooner, despite the character's noticeable flaws. Whether it's due to the way the script was written or the way Smith portrays the character, Spooner's wise-cracks are too over-the-top, with most of them, namely the one's early on in the film, failing to be the least bit humorous. Once you are able to look past that, Smith manages to the make the character quite interesting and mysterious with his emotions playing a prominent factor in his unpredictability. Alan Tudyk, who provided the voice work for the robot Sonny, does an adequate job with the limited material given to him but can't raise the character above anything more then a cheap CGI distraction. The problem with the character of Sonny is that the filmmakers attempt what director Steven Spielberg failed to do with Haley Joel Osment's character in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, which was to present a robot that had dreams, felt emotions, and, in some weird way, possessed a soul. The reason this failed, and this stands true with I, Robot's attempt as well, is that when all is said and done, a robot is nothing more then highly advanced can-opener. You can build it up as much as you want, throw in some high-tech gizmos, and anything else you can think of but you won't be able to replicate anything remotely close to a human being with a soul. A soul is what makes humans unique above any other creature and nothing, not even by the hands of man, can duplicate that and place it inside something else, let alone a hunk of metal. And what was the point of Shia Le Beouf's character in this film other then being a pathetic attempt at comic-relief, something this film possesses too much of.
Overall, as hard as I, Robot attempts to come off as brilliant vision of a futuristic utopia where all humanity has to do is look into the inner depths of our souls to live in peace and harmony, it comes off more along the lines of scientific mumbo-jumbo and computer-animated special effects run amok thrown into a blender at top speed resulting in nothing more then a garbled mess. Whether or not the film accurately projects the writings of Isaac Asimov, Robot's radical theories and story elements will go over most heads and those that do understand them will be disappointed by the lack of depth into how these conclusions were made. The special effects, though marveling at times, seem to be more the focus of the filmmakers then the script as nearly every scene seems to put more detail and concentration on the computer animation then how the story shapes out in the end. How can a film that seems as bad as this get any worse? By finishing it off with a final sequence that feels like the screen writers themselves didn't even know how to end this disaster. The filmmakers would have been better off just ending the film with Detective Spooner and Dr. Susan Calvin on top of the USR building looking out upon a rising sunset. Sound clichéd, doesn't it? Sure it does, but a clichéd ending, or any ending really, would have been a whole lot better then the perplexing sequence the  You can't even call it a ending since the scene resolves nothing and just leaves the audience with more questions with no idea on how to answer them. Are we to assume there will be a sequel to answer them? What if the film bombs? What if there is no sequel? Then what? I, Robot may have seemed like a neat summer distraction, quite possibly even thought provoking, from the juiced up trailers and television spots but advertisements can be deceiving and they are no different with this film. If you aren't a fan of Will Smith or special effects outweighing the plot, save your money and rent either The Matrix or Terminator 2: Judgment Day  It's practically the same thing only ten times better from everything this film presents.
My Rating: ** ½ out of 5 (Grade: D+)