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Hollywood has long misunderstood the classic science fiction novel. They either minimize the story and blow the action to larger-than-life proportions, whether or not it was that way in the book, or they conveniently change the story to be less grim and continually throw it in the audience's faces, ending up with a dry tale of epic badness. Sometimes they do things right. Steven Spielberg certainly hit one out of the park with Minority Report, doing absolutely everything right. David Lynch struck out with Dune, doing just about everything wrong. As for Alex Proyas and I, Robot? Well...he walks a fine line. This extremely loose adaptation of the classic novel by Isaac Asimov (see that it only credits the book as a suggestion?) takes place in the year 2035, only 31 years from now. Del Spooner (Will Smith) is a "technophobic" homicide detective living in New York City...and, yes, technophobic means exactly what you would think it'd mean...instead of being homophobic and hating gays, the guy is technophobic and hates robots. Ah, how quickly things change in three decades and one-tenth. Spooner is sent to the headquarters of the large corporation U.S. Robotics to investigate the murder of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell). Doesn't sound so out of the ordinary, except for that the crime may have been perpetrated by a robot named Sonny (Alan Tudyk). See, this violates the three rules that robots must follow, one of the only holdovers from the source material. Robots cannot harm a human being, cannot allow a human being to come to harm unless it conflicts with the first law, and cannot allow itself to come to harm unless it conflicts with the first two laws. So...murder? Definitely a no-no. Spooner is confronted by Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), who believes that there is no possible way the robot could've done such a thing. However, when it seems that there is a vast malfunction in the upcoming U.S. Robotics shipment of, well, robots, she may be forced to change the way she thinks. All hell eventually breaks loose, as one could guess from the chaotic, flashy trailers, and robots run amuck trying to overthrow human control. Akiva Goldsman is not a bad writer, as his screenplay for 2001's A Beautiful Mind was brilliant and deserving of the Oscar it won, and his script for 1994's The Client was solid, juicy, and entertaining. However, as proved by the disastrous Batman & Robin, the man simply does not know how to write action cinema. I, Robot takes many braindead twists and turns while trying to convince you it lives in an intellectual landscape. I'll give co-writer Jeff Vintar the benefit of the doubt and accredit him with the more interesting, logical aspects. I don't care if that's unfair and possibly false. I feel like saying it. Del Spooner, Susan Calvin, and Alfred Lanning all existed in Isaac Asimov's original book, but not quite in the same way. Spooner was not a homicide detective, but merely an interviewer. Calvin was an old woman retiring from U.S. Robotics who was more passionate about her robots than her colleagues, and whom Spooner was interviewing. Lanning was only slightly older than Calvin, and was decidedly not dead. Plus, the plot did not involve robots on the rampage. It was 200 pages of incredibly entertaining and thought-provoking philosophy and rich, wonderful sci-fi. Now, it would still make me angry if all of these changes had been made were this a strict adaptation of I, Robot, but having the nerve to only use the book as a basic guideline when Isaac Asimov was a better storyteller than Alex Proyas, Akiva Goldsman, and Jeff Vintar put together makes me angry to the nth degree. The man was a genius who wrote over 1,000 books, and deserves his due credit. Of course, what can one expect from today's Hollywood? Don't even make me comment on the jaw-droppingly stupid twist that occurs with Spooner's character near the end. That's the movie's biggest problem, by the way. It reeks of Hollywood. Even when Proyas manages to give it an unearthly, somewhat indie feel, a clichéd convention brings us crashing back to the harsh reality that this is still the director's way of actually making a buck in between making things that actually earn him respect within the industry. He has taken Asimov's ingenious tale and taken all of the genius way, just leaving behind the "in" prefix...which is more fitting than you would believe. Will Smith, though I've loved the guy for years and will continue to love him for years, does not turn in his best work here. He was great in Men in Black and even better in Ali, but here he just does an act-by-numbers job, probably because of the stuff he has to work with. Bridget Moynahan is really nothing more than a pretty face, and James Cromwell does good, though he seems to have the briefest role in any number of movies that he's in. --Full review at REELPICKS.CJB.NET-- email this review to a friend
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