Story, FX blend well in "Robot"

Rating: Null/10 (14 July 2004)

To fully understand the new 20th Century-Fox release, "I, Robot," one must remember the three robotic laws first put forth by Isaac Asimov's classic sci-fi book of the same name.
1) A robot can never harm a human; 2) a robot must obey all human orders unless it conflicts with the first law: and 3) a robot must protect itself unless it conflicts with the first two laws.
There it is.
Now, however, comes the problem. It's 2035 Chicago, complete with zooming, streamlined computer-controlled traffic and glittering million-story skyscrapers (I think things will be a bit more bleak in 30 years myself, but ...). There are also hundreds of thousands of robots scurrying about walking dogs, delivering male, collecting garbage, etc.
When Professor Alfred Lanning, the father of robotics (James Cromwell, "Babe," "LA Confidential"), falls from the top of the US Robotics building, everyone naturally assumes it's a suicide.
Everyone except CPD detective Del Spooner (Will Smith).
Things just don't look right to him (how the Dr. is thrown through protective safety glass, for instance), but as he postulates his theory that an android may have committed the crime, his boss, Lt. John Bergen (Chi McBride), along with other officers, think he's insane. After all, remember the three laws?
Of course, in a film like this, where the loner is fighting against everyone else for something he/she believes in, we the audience are in on it, but despite much evidence, no one else believes him.
Except for Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridgette Moynahan, "Coyote Ugly," "Sum of All Fears"), a researcher at USR, who finds an extraordinary android named Sonny, who sounds very much like HAL the Computer in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (the amazing creation is voiced by Alan Tudyk).
Sonny dreams, emotes and runs away from Spooner when he feels trapped. Your average, run-of-the-mill robot he ain't.
In the meantime, new NS-5 creations, more lifelike, yet much more subject to violence, are pouring off the assembly line to replace the older, more docile versions, while Spooner and Calvin investigate to the highest pinnacles of USR and the government.
But no one is going to sit still while a loose cannon rogue cop tries to upset the apple cart. On several occasions, Spooner is attacked by the mechanical creatures, just barely able to survive another run-in with the automatons.
Spooner also harbors a secret which motivates him to hate and fear the 'bots even more than most.
Not is all as it seems, however, and there a few neat little twists thrown in, as well.
I've never been a big Will Smith fan (recalling "Bad Boys" I and II, "Independence Day," "Wild, Wild West," etc.), but he does give a pretty low-key, sincere performance here. Director Alex Proyas ("Garage Days," "Dark City"), working with the biggest budget he's ever had, also blends creative special effects (the robots are amazing) with a decent storyline that keeps the action pumping with few slow spots. In addition, he doesn't allow the graphics to overwhelm a pretty good plot (that Isaac Asimov sure could write, couldn't he?).