Director:
Alex Proyas
Starring:
Will Smith
Bridget Moynahan
Alan Tudyk
Bruce Greenwood
Chi McBride
James Cromwell
Release: 16 Jul. 04
IMDb
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I, Robot
BY: DAVID PERRY
I, Robot is credits Isaac Asimov with the title “Suggested
by,” an attempt to glaze over their artistic license that still gives the
wrong impression of any connection between the two. In many ways, the only
uniting factor is are the three laws of robots and the title. Otherwise,
this is just repackaged Hollywood action fare posing for sci-fi literature’s
acceptance. Like the haphazard spate of recent Philip K. Dick adaptations,
there’s little of the intellectual stimulation brought over from the source
to this overblown, two-hour special effect. It’s the type of film that is as
inexplicable as the Forrest Gump saying “Stupid is as stupid does,” and
exemplifies it at the same time.
I’m not wholly against tinkering with the source to the point that it no
longer fully reflects the original, but I do want either similar themes or a
good variation (both achieved by Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg when
adapting Brian Aldliss’ story that would later become A.I.: Artificial
Intelligence -- the exact story is different, but the meaning remains the
same). I, Robot does neither because it’s more than happy to accept the fact
that enough special effects and a marquee star will ensure profit (even Wild
Wild West made money). The disinterest in Asimov, meanwhile, becomes
something of an offense. While the outlandish PATRIOT Act-referencing
dénouement has a giddy, mischievous nature, the rest of the film, including
its standard but no less pitiful climax, lacks any punchy material to
explain this film’s existence.
Even the much ballyhooed special effects are disappointing, as director Alex
Proyas sets sequences with CGI robots jumping on CGI walls -- there’s
nothing enthralling about watching noticeable artifice collide with
artifice. Proyas should know much better than this. While his career has
been spotty, he did make the ingenious Dark City six years ago, with its
fluid, expressionist special effects (much of which was model work). But
here the motivation is just cold hard cash, not entertainment,
exhibitionist, nor literary achievement. The “Suggested by” should have been
closer to: “Inspired by the fact that witless people will line up like
drones to see a movie because we’ve convinced them of its event-like status,
regardless of the contempt that we hold for their intellects, and our
willingness to piddle away our rights to making a real adaptation of the
Asimov anthology, by letting a film computer generated imagery take
precedence over its computer generated screenplay.” I fear that even if that
were in the ad campaigns, I, Robot will still be a hit. Prove me wrong.
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