Film making by numbers

Rating: 5/10 (12 August 2004)

Having seen a few trailers for 'I, Robot' I made the informed decision to give it a miss. I was somewhat surprised to find a generally favourable critical response to the film, so decided to give it a chance. I must admit that I wish I'd stuck to my former decision. You need to be seriously into the sci-fi genre (or Will Smith) to really enjoy this film.
Set 31 years in the future Chicago seems to have undergone a dramatic change. The city is inundated with robots which make humans more or less redundant. Although these robots are programmed to ensure they can never hurt humans we all know that this is not going to work. It seems that we must have become a much more trusting race during the next 31 years because only Spooner (Smith) seems to question whether the robots can break their 3 rules.
The cast do their best, but it's a shame we couldn't lose a bit of Smith in favor of Cromwell. Even though it's got a few moments that will make you squirm a bit it isn't a bad film - it's just very average. 6/10