Stars:
** 1/2
Rating: PG-13 for
violence and brief nudity
Run
Time: 1
hour, 54 minutes
Gritty
homicide detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) dislikes the concept of machines
taking up the slack, and carries his paranoia around like a suit of armor. When robotics pioneer and Spooner friend Dr.
Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) does a nose-dive off of a high building,
Spooner suspects that a robot is behind the death.
Impossible,
claim co-workers, since robots, according to the laws programmed into their
hard drives, are incapable of harming human beings.
Suggested
by the 1950 short story collection by Isaac Asimov, I, Robot has its heart and its technology in the right
place. The look is slick and stylized; one
can’t help but admire a know-how that permits a generation of walking
nuts-and-bolts to move effortlessly amongst men.
The “largest
robot distribution in history” is a marvel of computer-generated skill and the
production design is near-flawless. The robots themselves are hyper-creepy and
eerily calm in their ability to express something akin to emotion and perform
the daily tasks we take for granted.
But look
beyond the CG flash and you’re left holding the bag, in this case a stultifying
script and one-note storyline that pits man against machine sans serious rancor
or imagination.
Can’t
fault Smith, an industry unto himself. Will
can stand perfectly still and generate hardcore heat. He manages to transcend cheesy one-liners and
smirky dialogue by the sheer force of his charisma. Bridget Moynahan as
partner-in-crime cum robot programmer Susan Calvin doesn’t stand a chance.
As
summer sci-fi thrillers go, Robot
has the mindless stuff to get the job done, but doesn’t quite live up to its
monumental potential.