I, Robot (7/10)

There are some really absurd scenes in this movie that mar what should have been a terrific entertainment. Del Spooner (Will Smith) is attacked by thousands of robots and always emerges unscathed. I wish that Directors, in this case Alex Proyas, would take good stories and populate them with conflicts that are resolved believably. It simply defies credibility for one man to take on all these opponents and always come out on top. In real life he’d last 10 seconds, at best before being overwhelmed and destroyed.

Spooner is a futuristic (2035) Chicago detective in a world where robots do much of the mundane work in place of humans. The robots are bound by three immutable rules created by the author of the books, Isaac Asimov, none of which allows them to harm humans.

However, one robot does have the ability to harm humans. Someone is killed and Spooner smells a rat involving U.S. Robotics, the giant corporation that makes all the robots, and its chairman, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), the “richest man in the world.” He meets Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Mynahan), the cold, calculating scientist in charge of the manufacture of the robots. Together they discover Sonny (Alan Tudyk), the “unique” robot. The three of them try to root out the problem as the robots start to try to take over.

The acting in this is uniformly good, and the story holds your interest. I don’t generally like these things that are set in the future, but this one was entertaining, except for the many times Spooner is attacked in situations where nobody could possibly hope to survive.

July 12, 2004

The End

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