Amateur Robotics?

Rating: 7/10 (27 February 2008)

Entertaining big-budget sci-fi, light on philosophy, heavy on SFX and none the worse for that. Adapting Asimov's famous book and then putting Will Smith right in the middle of it, well, what would you expect...? Making wisecracks a-plenty as if he's only just moved out of Bel-Air, you just know this is going to pay as much attention to its source material as latter day Bond features to Fleming's original novels, but putting that admittedly major caveat aside this is good quality latter day Hollywood blockbuster film-making which ticks all the buttons you'd expect it to. Smith is likable in his "Men In Black" / "Independence Day" reprise and enters fully into his blue-screen persona. The story is reasonably intelligent and told at a furious pace, stopping only occasionally for some mild debate on the whole free-will issue before careering on into the next action set-piece. The computer graphic enhanced sets of Futureworld are impressive as are the depictions of the army of robots which rise up against their makers and the interaction of the humans comes off well most of the time, although some shots (for example Smith on his motorbike) are less successfully realised. The dialogue is okay, automatic at times, and perhaps lacking in snappy one-liners to take your mind off the story's adapting to film mores of the new Millennium. All in all a movie to sit with a big box of popcorn alongside,(if you can look past the fairly blatant product placement - and no, my next car will not be an Audi!), glory in the big car chase and the various fight sequences - in fact in that sense maybe's it's not so far removed from those blissfully innocent 50's sci-fi entertainments like "The Day The World Stood Still" or the original "War of The Worlds". In that sense "I Robot" is perhaps a minor achievement after all.