A film that tries to incorporate the laws of robotics but fails on too many levels

Rating: 4/10 (13 January 2015)

This is my first review on IMDb. I chose this film as I feel very strongly about it. This film had the potential to be a great film, even an Oscar winning film as the robotics stories by Isaac Asimov have the complexities and subtleties to enable to. However, it fails on several levels.
The opening scene is just one long product placement advertisement. Multiple unsubtle annoying references to footwear, cars and goodness knows what else. It really adds nothing and takes a lot away.
However, one of the main flaw to this film is the lead character, not actor. In an office of smart, professional looking police officers we have Will Smith, who appears as the least convincing police officer I have ever seen. Trainers, bean hat, long coat etc. He displays very few characteristics that would enable him to be an effective officer, excepting bravery, and it makes no sense to me that he would have any connection at all to the robotics scientist whose death he is asked to investigate. I just don't buy his character, it is at odds with everything else in the film. Will Smith acts decently, but it is a just a repeat role, 'black man with attitude who looks after the little guy' that I have seen before in other films where it makes sense and adds to the film. It does not here.
The film proceeds as a murder investigation, and the interactions with the main robot are pleasant and even touching at times. The Susan Calvin character is decent although not faithful. Her inevitable romance with Will Smith's character is inevitable and unconvincing.
In the long term of the film he is right to suspect the robots as being a danger to humans. Robots looking after humanity rather than the individual, known as the nth law, is an important theme is the robot stories. However, he saves the day not by understanding or prediction of the nth law of robotics, investigative skills or logic, but by paranoia and irrationality. He does not save the day by skill but luck, and this undermines the film constantly and ultimately ruins the film.
The film has decent CGI, there are some nice Asimov references, the film is at times entertaining and I can understand why a lot of people enjoyed and wrote positive reviews. I am just hopeful that in 10 or 20 years time this film is remade with more subtle complexities and more faithful to Asimov's masterpieces.