Skims over the surface of some weighty issues.

Rating: 6/10 (22 February 2005)

Will Smith stars in this Isaac Asimov adaptation, as a future cop who is deeply suspicious of robots. His fears seem well-founded when one of the new generation of robots apparently goes crazy following the death of its inventor, but the more he investigates the more complex it becomes.
This is a competent film, which goes some way to getting across the central message, that an excessively ordered, peaceful and regimented society is a bad thing, and that it is better to retain what we have, a society of fallible human beings. Humans may make mistakes, and sometimes they make colossal ones, but if you eliminate this aspect of human nature then society will stagnate.
While much of the film is about ideas, an equal amount is given above to traditional action fare, and there are a number of energetic sequences, in which the special effects are put to good use. The highlight sees Smith driving through a tunnel with robots clambering all over the bonnet of his futuristic car.
When all's said and done, the film doesn't quite deliver. Smith seems more subdued than usual, and his dialogue includes some fairly forced quips. A bit more of his Fresh Prince persona would have been welcome here, although perhaps this was ruled out to avoid turning the film into a comedy, and depriving it of a suitable level of dramatic tension. For once Smith is not bigger than the film.
Despite an intriguing plot, I Robot skims over the surface of some pretty weighty issues, without really tackling them head on. It's agreeable enough, but remains a mild disappointment.