Much Ado a 'Bot Nothing

"I, Robot" takes some general principles from Issac Asimov's novels and creates a simple whodunit as a vehicle for Will Smith to play the wisecracking technophobe cop. "Suggested by" the Asimov "Robot" novels which, aside from coining the term "Robotics", created the Three Laws by which Robots must abide which, paraphrased, are: a robot can't harm a human, must obey humans (except in contradiction to the first law) and must protect itself (except in contradiction to the first two laws). Ironically, Mr. Smith spends so much of his time dropping one-liners that he doesn't develop much more character than his robotic costars. Bridget Moynhan doesn't fair much better as a sympathetic robotic engineer. Only Sonny, the NS-5 model suspected of the murder of his creator (James Cromwell, of course), voiced and modeled, in Andy Serkis fashion, by Alex Tudyk, takes on life. Like the Data character in "Star Trek: The Next Generation", Sonny grapples with the possibility of human emotion.

Directed with some flair by Alex Proyas, whose "The Crow" and "Dark City" leave hope for much better movies still to come, "I, Robot" presents a future (amazingly, considering the advancements, only 30 years from now) in which robots have became as common place as iPods. In fact, the movie leaves no doubt that the fictional USR Robotics Corporation stole its designers from Apple. With their vaguely metallic skin tone and silver highlights, the NS-5 models are clearly from the mind of a Mac user. And from the harddrive of one as well; the robots in the film are clearly CGI and never really hold much physical weight.

The film provides abundant eye candy, since much of its obviously huge budget was spent creating the futuristic Chicago. Like "Minority Report", the filmmakers inexplicably chose a date in the much too near future, 2035. Given the incredibly altered skyline and highway system, Chicago's architects are going to have a busy 30 years. Perhaps it's the CGI imagery, or maybe it's just a trend, but sci-fi filmmakers need to rediscover the art design of a "Blade Runner", "2001" or even Mr. Proyas' own "Dark City" in which the world isn't so shiny. You'd think a future when all menial labor is done by machine would have a homeless person or two, but aside from a throwaway line ("Don't tell me, your father lost his job to a robot") there's no reference to the effect on society of this astounding technological breakthrough. Interestingly enough, and this is a problem in the Asimov novels as well, there doesn't seem to be any competition for USR Robotics, nor do the robots seem out of the financial reach of even the most common citizen.

"I, Robot" is not a bad movie, it just doesn't know its roots. The fun of Asimov's stories was that the robots always followed the letter of those three Laws; they were logical to a fault. And, after coining the Laws, Asimov spent his time writing stories about the difficulty in their interpretation. In the film "I, Robot", the robots of the Asimov novels are relegated to the background in favor of the "Next Generation" models which may, or may not, have a flaw. The occasional glimpses we get of these older models provide an idea of the Asimov adaptation that is yet to be made - one that is true to his novels. In fact, were it not for a cat with the name "Asimov" on its collar, they might have been able to take his name right off the movie.