I, Revamp

Rating: 6/10 (10 June 2006)

Alex Proyas had a very impressive debut with his first film, The Crow, back in 1994. Instead of his career taking off, he took the death of the film's lead, Brandon Lee so hard that he would be slower to choose his productions than most directors, taking on two more productions in the interim, the barely noticed Garage Days and the grossly underrated Dark City. Something about these three films led Twentieth Century Fox to consider Mr. Proyas for their big budget endeavor, 2004's I, Robot.
The film's plot is about a newly designed robot who is either guilty of murdering the man who created his top of the line brand of robot, the NS5, or there may be more to the murder than it appears. That's as far as the loyalty to the source material lies as the movie delves into action sequences and special effects to drive the story along. Not such a bad thing as Proyas seems to be playing in territory that he is not just familiar with, but aptly comfortable as the sequences are very entertaining, particularly a sequence where two semi trucks of NS5s pull up to Det. Spooner's (Will Smith) car and inevitable hell breaks loose.
Will Smith, who is always an interesting actor to watch whenever given the proper material to work with (Ali, Six Degrees of Separation) is playing away in familiar territory as the wisecracking playful tough guy who seems to know more about the world he's in than the rest of the characters. However, Smith's character of Det. Spooner has a prejudice towards artificially intelligent robots, which gives him a discernment towards living in a society that seems to welcome letting robots take over for them. One would hope that in the future, society would be a bit more adept towards their way of life and not be so uniformly inclined to all believe the same thing about comfort.
Now, this review will not examine the guilt or innocence of Sonny (an impressively scanned and captured Alan Tudyk), the robot accused of murdering the man who created him, but remain to examining the movie itself. Does this work as a summer film: yes. It's loud, exciting and boasts some of the best visual effects in computer captured imaging. However, does it work as a societal examination of letting machines and computers control our lives for us the way Assimov intended his novel to be? Not particularly. I, Robot doesn't take the time that it should in lingering in the society long enough to see the sociological effects of having a technology driven society. Such philosophies are sacrificed in favor of the summer film standards.
Proyas' touches can be seen in a few scattered scenes and one can tell where he fought to have his visions kept around. Alex Proyas is a man of unique vision, as his films like The Crow and Dark City have showcased. Here, only glimpses of his vision can be seen, but the screenplay from Akiva Goldsman and apparent pressures from the studio (something that Proyas has stated left such a sour taste in his mouth that he may never do a big studio production again) are the biggest hindrances that hold I, Robot back from being more than just a piece of summer entertainment. In an ironic mirror, studios seem to be the NS5's to Proyas' society in that they seem to have integrated themselves so much that they are the direct result of a loss of individuality.