a good enjoyable action movie but nothing more, less witty than the adapted books of Asimov

Rating: Null/10 (1 August 2004)

Inspired by the science fiction Robot short stories and novels of Isaac Asimov, the film I Robot is not an adaptation of a particular one. Instead, as shown by the credits at the end, the baseline story was 'suggested' by Isaac Asimov's works. Hence the illustration of the Three Laws of Robotic, mainly the first (a robot can't harm a human) and how it could be bypassed, are a pretext for another summer Hollywood blockbuster. Not a bad one in fact, but not a particular inspired one altogether. As in Asimov works, the film is a detective story but turned here into action packed thriller movie. So we get the standard auto chases, cliff hangers and fights.
The special effects are good, especially the computer-generated robots but the vision of the future, in 2035, is just an extrapolation of our own. Neither it has the power displayed in the eighties 'Blade Runner', nor the originality of Alex Proyas previous work 'Dark City'. Moreover Asimov was generally more confident with ideas of intelligent robots working in our daily surroundings. Contrary to the movie, (SPOILERS) no hostile swarms of robots could be seen in his books.
As often, in science fiction films the best elements stem from the adapted books and stories, written in a more witty way than the script.
I would not like to seem to despise the film, a quite enjoyable one with very acceptable storyline for an action movie, good performance by Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan though the other main character 'Sonny' the robot feels more touching. I notice that it is common in science fiction movie or TV shows, that the alien or robot characters feels more moving than the real people. Take android Data or Klingon Worf in 'Star Trek Next generation', torn between conflicted aspirations, were livelier than the rest of Enterprise crew, robotic and military. And, as a standard bow to some Hollywood habit, the robotic expert Susan Calvin of the books is turned from a spinster to an attractive, yet stern-looking young woman, played by Bridget Moynahan.