I, Fresh Prince

Rating: 7/10 (2 August 2004)

I, Robot finds Will Smith in unfamiliar territory - a movie with a hint of intelligence. Based very loosely on Isaac Asimov's robot stories, using the "3 Laws" as a launching point, the picture is set just 35 years after the Willenium, in 2035 Chicago.
Apparently, I, Robot feels you did not see enough advertising before the start of the movie, as straight away, you'll be inundated with ads for a sneaker company, a parcel delivery service, and by the time you leave the theater, you'll have a strange notion that you really need an Audi. Audi is good... Audi is your friend... Audi will not harm you...
You'll also notice a couple things right off the bat about the future. One is that transportation and robot technology will make incredible leaps and bounds over the next 31 years, to the point where Chicago has a whole underground autobahn for maglev-type vehicles. Wow, who ironed out that bureaucracy? My local government is going to take over a decade to build a 15-mile beltway that's above ground, made out of plain old concrete, and will only accommodate regular gas-powered cars. The underground roadway of I, Robot even comes with its own automated valet, which files your car away vertically in a specially made "parking lot". Pretty cool, and a small price to pay for having to learn to own a car without loose items inside. The other thing you'll notice is that people of the future are awfully trusting of robotic technology. They absolutely refuse to believe that robots can glitch. Then again, Microsoft's logo is nowhere to be found in the picture, so that might make some sense.
This lack of technophobia is explained shortly, when Detective Spooner (Will Smith) meets Dr. Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) during an investigation of a fishy looking suicide involving robot engineering genius Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell) in his office at US Robotics, a company which has gone from making modems in the 20th century to robots in the 21st (What foresight!). Dr. Calvin's job is to make these creepy and potentially dangerous robots appear human and trustworthy, a lot like how a government neuters its constitution by cratering the 1st and 4th amendments and makes it all seem friendly and beneficial by calling it the "Patriot Act". Anyway, Dr. Calvin has a doubter on her hands with Det. Spooner. He hates robots. At first, it seems it's just because he's old fashioned. He owns a gas-powered motorbike, listens to Stevie Wonder tunes from 65 years ago, prefers to drive his maglev using the steering wheel, and still struts around in that gangsta-rapper swagger that went out of fashion way back in the year 2004. He's so old school, he even showers without a curtain. However, you will eventually learn he has another reason for hating robots during a plot contrivance midway through the film, shortly after another plot contrivance that reveals his bionic arm.
Spooner suspects a model in the latest line of robots is behind the good doctor's death, but has no real evidence and is hampered by the unrelenting faith of the robot believers, even after a glitch in the building's security system, named NIKI (Shodan, from System Shock) blots out the critical moment from the surveillance tapes.
This is where Spooner's investigation begins, and after a couple requisite cop-movie clichés (case obsession, booted from force), he uncovers a conspiracy involving a robot revolution, stemming from an over-translation of the 3 Robotic Laws.
Somebody should have told Will Smith this wasn't Men in Black III, as his wisecracking persona that we've seen a hundred times already is really out of place here. And those 'hero leaps'? Where the hero hurtles himself through the air in slow-motion while pulling off some inhuman feat (usually involving firearms)? Yep, sadly, a couple of those are in there as well, making one suspect that John Woo has hijacked the production. We also get to see yet another example of 2004's favorite cinematic chestnut, the CGI army, topped off by a scene where hundreds of robots scale the side of a skyscraper. Aside from that, the CGI is actually very good. There's also a faint attempt in the story to determine what constitutes the line between artificial life and real life, but fortunately, the filmmakers realized this was ground trod plenty enough times by Star Trek alone and let it drop.
On the plus side, I, Robot has plenty of action and unlike many of today's movies, has a keen sense of rhythm about it, and in spite of a few too many shopworn story devices, this movie still has a surprise or two and doesn't take 2 and a half hours to get it out. While it first appears to be an anti-technology film, this isn't so much the case as a warning for checks and balances in safety/prevention devices, no matter how simple and self-maintaining they may appear to be. It's not often a modern Hollywood film - a sci-fi actioner, no less - actually has something to say about our current state of affairs.