Product: I, Robot [Region 2] (2004)
Rating: 3.0
Sometimes things are surprising!
I'm not a Will Smith fan (unless your talking about DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince) and I really wanted to hate this movie. This stems from the fact that Mr. Smith is not an actor as he is a personality and (for the most part) most people could not name any character he has played. It's just Will Smith in a movie about such and such. With that said, back to my point, I was ready to hate this movie. I was surprised to find that Alex Proyas directed this (as well as the superb Dark City) and the story (while not any kind of ground breaking Sci-Fi) was strongly rooted in the Sci-Fi and Mystery genres. It unfolded well and was interesting, heck, even Will was good as Detective Spooner (Yes he gets props for actually acting, even if it was still just a sombre paranoid version of himself). Ok, it had it's holes, but not too many. Oddly enough it was the "stylized" action sequences that failed the story to me and they just seemed to be out of place in this straight forward Sci-Fi piece. Also the Mystery side of it never really panned out. The movie does have it's charm, though and if this is any indication of the status of the blockbuster movies coming out of Hollywood right now, then at least that's a good thing. Again, not great and not nearly as "smart" as it wants to be but far better than the usual Hollywood faire.