Better than I remembered

Rating: 8/10 (19 March 2011)

Intelligent Science Fiction seems to be an oxymoron in Hollywood (unless perhaps you are Christopher Nolan, and even there I am not convinced.) But this action blockbuster at least tries to bring some smarts to the genre even if it fails to progress much beyond cliché in the general characterisation. It's also a shame that Asimov's Robot stories haven't been mined more thoroughly either before or since (unlike PK Dick who seems to be eternal flavour of the month.) Indeed the central conceit of this particular screenplay should really have been in a sequel (or even later) since it relies on the audience properly understanding the implications of the Three Laws so that the logical conclusion which is drawn in the film has more of an impact in terms of what it really means. But Will Smith is as watchable as ever, and the effects still stand up pretty well today (7 years on) with the mass robot sequences working especially well. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it (even if the plot holes are all too apparent) and yes, I think it does qualify as Intelligent SF.