Product: I, Robot [Region 2] (2004)
Rating: 3.0
Smith overshadows a decent story.
There's a lot of food for thought in this film. We might be getting very close to the type of robot pictured here -- search for "marshall brain robot" on the web to find a good starting place on the future of robotics, and the implications for society. Among those implications are massive unemployment -- an issue only lightly touched on in this movie. Remember the scene with the FedEx robot driver? Very plausible, and that won't be the only job taken over by automation.But unfortunately, these issues were glossed over in favor of a cliched action story. And the issues were further obscured by the enormous ego of Will Smith. This film was primarily a vehicle for him to show off his buff bod, act cooler than everyone around him, and intimidate hapless men of lighter pigmentation. These have all become familiar facets of his movies, so that a Will Smith drinking game would be quite easy to construct.Again, this movie could have been much more had it focused less on Smith's ego, and more on the promises -- and problems -- of the coming robotic revolution.