An Insult To Turkeys

Rating: 1/10 (7 August 2006)

A jaw-droppingly dreadful movie that has no redeeming feature. It starts as a blaxploitation movie and then deteriorates. The characters are one dimensional (In James Cromwell's case this is literally true!!)and the acting makes Sylvester Stallone appear as one of the great thespians of our time. The huge amount of money spent on this film whether for Mr Smith's fee or the tired computer effects could more usefully have been spent on alleviating world poverty and still have left some over for a new series of Baywatch. If the tone of this is faintly hysterical then it can only mean that I'm recovering from the catatonic shock that this movie plunged me into. The tragedy is that the story is 'adapted' from one of the great Science Fiction novellas but the hoofprints of the money-men's presence are stamped all over it. The casting of Will Smith does him and the film no favours, Smith is a comedian/comic actor famous for his wit, here he is asked to be serious and responds with a fixed grimace and a beanie pulled down over one eye, his limitations brutally exposed. One can suppose that the financing for the film was dependent on Smith's presence but it results in the film being top heavy and flatulent. The rest of the cast will probably want to erase this from their resumes but at least they are never asked to be more than shadows and they respond magnificently!! As for Alex Proyas' 'diection', one wonders, in the case where one is passed a 'star' and computer generated sets, if the the director becomes anything other than a technician but the buck presumably still stops with him. To be scrupulously fair I must concede that I watched this film the day after I had watched 'The Hours' in which there is great acting, direction, characterisation, great music and a conspicuous lack of computer trickery, so 'I Robot' suffered by comparison, but it would also have suffered if I'd watched it after enjoying a vintage episode of 'Happy Days'!!!!