USA, 2004
Director: Alex Proyas
Score: ***

I, ROBOT begins impressively enough with the 3 robot rules: “A robot shalt not harm any human being… etc.” superimposed on screen onto the images of Detective Del Spooner’s (Will Smith) recurring nightmare.  The dark, futuristic and nightmarish atmosphere created here sets the tone for the following two hours of a Hollywood-style, sci-fi excursion based on the short stories of famous science fiction writer Isaac Asimov.

Smith’s Detective Spooner is one paranoid attitude son-of-a- ***censored*** who rebels against the current 2035 system of robots.  Whereas the world (or Chicago where the film is set) relies totally on the man-made wonder, Spooner still drives manually, listens to old music players and wears 2004 footwear - again, product placement of Converse shoes and JVC recorders cleverly interwoven into the plot).  But the main problem is that Spooner despises robots and believes that they can do the human race damage.  So, when he is brought in to study the apparent suicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cameron), scientist of U.S. Robotics, he believes a conspiracy theory of a rebelling robot race.  The film works well, split into two halves – the first dealing with the underdog Spooner trying to convince every one of Lanning’s murder and the second when the action dominates.

Director Alex Proyas’s I, ROBOT has the same feel as his previous films DARK CITY and THE CROW, even though most scenes are lit up brightly. One characteristic of Proyas’s films is the lack of human feeling in his stories.  The love aspect between Smith and corporate worker, Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) is totally ignored here by Akira Goldman’s script, which actually is a good thing considering that ridiculous sub-plots of this nature usually ruin the feel of a good actioner.  Even the verbal sparring is kept at a minimum.  Smith, though, is a good enough actor ( and one that has proven that a black actor can carry a blockbuster hit like INDPENDENCE DAY ) who at least reminds audiences that a live being exists in the story.  The scene where he explodes in anger at his supervisor (Chi McBride), flinging his badge away and then verbally abusing two cop bystanders is solid proof of Smith’s acting mettle.

The sets and props are impressive from the automatic parking of vehicles at the side of a highway tunnel to metal-shiny walls of buildings.  The only time the film has a non-futuristic look is when the camera backs off once to show a panoramic view of Chicago when the city actually looks like the present.  (Proyas, at least, blurs this image.) Why Chicago was chosen to be the scene of the action is anyone’s guess.  Perhaps Chicago was chosen because it has recently replaced Toronto as the new Hollywood North.

I, ROBOT necessarily relies heavy on special CGI effects. The extent can usually be related to the length of time of the end credits, which in this case, lasted for around 10 minutes.  The film’s overall look is a combination of the LORD OF THE RINGS and THE MATRIX movies.  Thousands of robots stand in a military-style line and duplicated as the camera (apparently) swings diagonally to show the impressive line up. The robots fight and fly as its speed changes from fast to normal to slow motion the way Keanu Reeves fought Agent Smith in the later MATRIX films.  A lot of the CGI effects were created by Weta Digital of New Zealand, also responsible for LORD OF THE RINGS.  But the most effective scene is the ominous glance of the giant robot statue at the corpse of Dr. Lanning as if to indicate the superiority of robots over the human race.  The actions scenes (particularly the car chase in the tunnel), are spectacular enough when combined with live action.  But the robotic fights at the climax look like something right out of a computer game.  For example when Sonny, the good robot battles another, they become indistinguishable, except for the fact that the emerging winner must be Sonny.

The script contains some awful forgettable ex-wife (Spooner’s) jokes.  On the other hand, the banter between Spooner and Susan (e.g. “You are the dumbest smart person I know”) generates simple effective humor.  Spooner’s fear of heights as he walks across the futuristic structural pathways is parody of futuristic sets of the best kind.

At the end, the film “I, ROBOT” lays down the ultimate rule for Hollywood block-buster robot movies: “Hollywood sci-fi movies will always fail to contain sufficient human emotions.” Still, the film delivers what it promised.  And, I, ROBOT will mechanically knock Spidey out of the top box-office slot.

Review by Gilbert Seah.