Product: I, Robot [Region 2] (2004)
Rating: 3.0
A smart but unmemorable action sci fi mystery
Will Smith reprises his one-dimensional macho John Wayne role from "Independence Day" in this science fiction thriller. This movie begins by hinting it will be more than man vs. machine, perhaps with some of the intellect hinted in "AI", but it ends up being a pretty typical (but high class) action mystery with a typical ending.Briefly stated, the plot revolves around a society 30 years in the future where robots are everywhere and are serving mankind as maids, helpers, cooks, etc. Will Smith is a cop that doesn't trust robots for a couple reasons. In typical Hollywood style, his distrust begins as waywardness and ends as prescience when robot-induced mayhem is quelled in the denouement.This movie gets points for not being as predicatable as it suggests in the opening minutes, not to mention its outstanding production values, good musical score and extremely generous computer-generated scenes of robots, the 2035 city of Chicago and other impressive scenes that surely will generate a lot of visceral affect on wide screen television.Yet, in the final analysis, this is pretty typical stuff for both Smith and Hollywood -- a movie about a cop that seems to know something's wrong when no one else (including Ph.D. scientists, Smith's boss and other geniuses) can see the troubling developments. The action and smart pacing of this flick makes it memorable, but not so memorable that you remember everything about it the next morning.