A travesty!!

Rating: 1/10 (7 December 2006)

What on earth has this movie to do with Isaac Asimov? I've read some of his stuff, but other than his three robot laws, I see no similarities between his work and this 115 minute commercial. Acting is poor, no better than in your average TV show, the dialogues are crap, either there to remind of us the stereotypical 'cop with a grudge' Smith is performing (you might forget that when he keeps talking about his vintage 2004 shoes)) or... I actually don't know why there is dialogue at all really.
Worse is: this movie revolves around a plot that is broken at the level of it's foundation. This plot is build on a 'logic' (which "you can't deny") that is simply false. Because (spoiler ahead) the whole idea is that this robots turn society into a fascist state to protect human kind from itself in order to uphold the first law which is 'not to allow harm to happen to human beings'. Yet: (a) they harm tons of human beings in the process of their revolution (and the law specifically states individual human beings, not human kind at large, so where did they get this utilitarian notion that it's OK to harm a whole bunch to protect a slightly bigger bunch?) and (b) harm comes not only through physical injury; it also comes through psychological injury, and massive oppression and containment does just this (which is why people rebelled against it then, and always will). This is well-known of course, we need the freedom to express ourselves and explore our social environments, we need a freedom to interact with- and challenge the world around us: it is in our human nature! This has nothing to do with the romantic babbling of free will that is being used in the movie; this is a matter of human psychology, and if the robot superbrain would have actually studied some of the many documents on psychology there already were in vintage year 2004 she would have come to this conclusion herself. Or hey, why not send in someone with understanding of human society and behavior to have a chat with this robot brain (which would have no doubt been open to such audience), or was the entire world suddenly comprised of tinheads like mr. Smith here who rather brings his point across using bullets?
Asimov took care of building a philosophical foundation for his works, have the dialogues bring out the mature personalities of his characters, have social and political developments actually make sense in a broader scheme... none of this can be found in the movie. Frankly, I find it a disgrace to see his name attached to a movie made by folks who I doubt even read any of his work.
If you're looking for a cheap action movie, this one fits the bill. If you're looking for thought-through science fiction, spare yourself this travesty. If the makers had spend as much time on the story (and it's underlying philosophy) as they did on product placement, it might have... well.. actually, no, I don't see how these folks could have ever made something out of this.