Decent sci-fi, frenzied action

Rating: 7/10 (16 April 2008)

I saw this one originally at the Sacramento Six drive-in, but had missed the beginning of the movie so this was my first complete viewing. It's a decent enough sci-fi movie, providing more ideas than most big budget affairs that go by the name. As an action movie I find it slightly underwhelming. A few of the fight scenes go on too long, and like Alex Proyas' earlier and superior sci-fi "Dark City" it becomes relatively formulaic towards the climax after starting off a bit more promising.
Many parts of this film, especially the scenes with Del (Will Smith) and his grandmother (Adrian Ricard), feel like they are some kind of obligatory nod to Smith's screen persona. However Smith's presence on the whole is a major asset to the film. I like him here as much as I've liked him in anything. He's able to seem invulnerable and yet sensitive at the same time, no mean feat. Later on in the story we find out a plausible reason for why he acts this way, in that he is himself partly mechanical, but he's already conveyed it very well through his character work. The scenes with Smith and Shia LaBeouf feel pretty artificial as well, at best causing one to chuckle but seeming very forced into the story. They even have to interrupt the big chase towards the end so Smith can save LaBeouf. I have a feeling that the writers felt like the audience might be turned off or feel insulted or patronized by the fact that everyone except Del Spooner is so complacent about the robots, so they felt they had to almost overcompensate with the big human vs. robot street rumble at the end which is pretty silly. How would a mob of angry New Yorkers line themselves up in formation like an army and attack the robots in such an organized way? It should be more chaotic and riotous.
The core of the movie is the 3-some of cop Del, Dr. Calvin (Bridget Moynihan) and the robot Sonny (voiced by Alan Tudyk). That part of the movie does work very well. The audience is inclined to distrust the robot just like Del, and the character becomes sympathetic and even admirable by the end of the story. In the sense that they tied this character process to the intellectual question of the distinctive aspects of the soul, it gives the movie a solid foundation.
It's interesting perhaps to note that even 10 or certainly 20 years before this film was made, you would never have seen a black star in a sci-fi role like this. There's nothing in the story that requires the character to be black, although it does make the theme of Del's prejudice against robots seem ironic. There's also nothing in the relationship between Del and Dr. Calvin that would require her to be a woman. So it's kind of nice to see the movie cast this way, it makes me think how far we've come even just in my lifetime as far as sci-fi heroes. I like the character anyway, I like how he is a guy who collects "antiques" from our time; it helps the audience connect with him and it's a good device to keep Smith in his comfort zone as far as style as well.
Unfortunately this film seems among Proyas' films more close to "The Crow" than to "Dark City" -- there's more style than substance here ultimately. And Proyas isn't afraid to cater to the audience's demand for a video game paced action scene every 8 minutes or so. But I suppose that's the price of working with such a large budget and such a skilled cast and crew. The effects work in this film is really astounding, although these days that's getting to be almost a matter of course. Proyas mixes the action with just enough ideas to create a movie that is less than an embarrassment to Asimov's original. The closing shots with the robot on the hill have a weird quality to them and a very ambitious idea behind them that redeems the affair also to some extent from the rather silly fight scenes that immediately precede them. In the end, I'm surprised by how good it ended up being and still hoping that Alex Proyas has more great sci-fi to bring us in the future.