Robot Dog

Rating: 5/10 (26 January 2005)

A "robotophobic" cop investigates the death of the world's leading robotics scientist. Is the death suicide, or was the crime committed by the professor's new robot? I hate summarizing a movie plot, but when there is so little to say, good or otherwise, about the trite, predictable, "I Robot," I need the summary to meet the required number of lines for submission.
Will Smith's performance as the cop is slack and listless, the worse star turn since Eddie Murphy in "Beverly Hills Cop 3" (I can't count Kevin Coaster). The art direction is as phony and unconvincing as the sets in "Never Say Never Again". The Oscar-nominated(!) robot special effects are not done nearly as well as in the mostly forgotten "Red Planet." Sure, Sonny is incredibly charming, but so what? The action set pieces never rise above the level of video game and the tunnel sequence doesn't have enough high level (i.e., Long Shot) coverage to be even that good.
The plot is not only trite and predictable, it is in one key plot element (gasp!) illogical. To explain this requires spoilers.
WARNING: SPOILERS Smith distrusts robots because one chose to rescue him from a submerged vehicle, sacrificing a young woman in the process. The robot did not take into account that she was a young woman; it saved Smith because he had a better chance of survival. HELLO! A human rescue team might have done EXACTLY the same thing.
It was a nice touch to make Smith partially bionic. Too bad, they do anything in the way of philosophical commentary about. After all, as "The Six Million Dollar Man" comes closer to reality (DARPA has a major program for just that) and artificial intelligence reaches the level of sentient, the question will arise "What exactly IS human?" END OF SPOILERS The best thing I can say about "I Robot" is that it is never boring. I give it a "5".