I, Robot

Ken Hanke started his review by stating, “Ah, the merits of low expectations! And what I anticipated with I, Robot could not possibly have been any less.”

Hanke continued, “As I walked into the screening, I was asked if I was looking forward to the film. Unfortunately, the dictates of good taste prevent me from repeating my answer here, though I can say it involved a suggestion that the film would almost certainly engage in a highly personal activity with a certain barnyard animal. After all, I’d seen the trailer, which suggested yet another mindless CGI-created action-athon with occasional time-out for snappy one-liners from its star. It looked for all the world like a rehash of the cosmically godawful Men in Black II. That is, without Tommy Lee Jones — thus leaving us only with Will Smith, who hasn’t impressed me since Six Degrees of Separation.”

There was a statement that just gave people the author who the makers of “I, Robot,” released in 2004, said they based it off of: “suggested by the book by Isaac Asimov.” For those that have seen the 1934 “The Black Cat” will know that Universal said that exact sentence by stating “suggested by Edgar Allen Poe’s immortal classic.” Hanke noted, “While I freely admit that the 1934 Black Cat is in my personal pantheon of top-10 movies ever made, it has absolutely nothing to do with Mr. Poe’s “immortal classic.””

Hanke continued, “So with this to work from, the atmosphere of the screening was definitely one that mixed grave misgivings with gloomy foreboding (and I’m again being polite). Well, I was wrong — very wrong!” No, “I, Robot” is not Asimov’s story (or stories), but it is inspired from the great works of sci-fi. The three laws of robotics, which state that a robot cannot hurt a human, are true to Asimov. Along with that, the film’s basic story is rooted in his writing too. Of course, that is a small fact, hurting only huge sci-fi fans, since the movie’s quality relies very little on this main inspiration to its sources.

The real surprise is that “I, Robot” is a rare release with summer blockbusters, a film with something it’s thinking of. This doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have the necessary requirements of a summer movie: It’s loud, it’s very funny, it’s filled with perfectly enjoyable action scenes. However, there’s more to it than that, some of which is really surprising. Hanke noted, “I, Robot may just be the most subversive $100-million-plus movie ever made, with the kind of sinister attitude usually associated with exploitation or art-house fare.”

Particularly, the film has interested parallels between robots and racism, which is given a scheming twist by having the prejudices against the robot population mainly from Will Smith’s Del Spooner. “I saw a robot running with a woman’s purse. What was I supposed to think?” he asks his supervisor, Lt. Bergin, played by the great Chi McBride, after Spooner wrongly arrests a robot for “stealing” a purse. Later, robot magnate Lawrence Robinson, played by Bruce Greenwood, cautiously blames Spooner of bigotry, thinking that the policeman wants to believe a robot is guilty of murder just because Spooner doesn’t “care for their kind.” (Hanke said, “All of this would play better if the film — which otherwise oddly provides more Smith beefcake than Bridget Moynahan cheesecake — didn’t insist on injecting a wholly arbitrary, homophobic gag between Spooner and Robinson.”)

By the time “I, Robot” explains what’s the problem with the strange events happening, it’s hard to miss the (definitely intentional) parallels between the reasoning of the villain and the language of the Patriot Act. Like with “X2,” which tells a similar, but more specific, subtext, this works because it’s a logical result of the story.

For a large summer movie, “I, Robot” has a nicely solid story line, with Spooner’s racism against robots the main factor of the film’s mystery. Also, the inventor of the robots, Dr. Alfred Lanning, played by James Cromwell, has expected Spooner’s bigotry. What really causes the action here is the robots’ growth to the point where they can understand the three laws of robotics in a way that completely challenges those laws (and here again, there’s a lot of subtext to see here).

Hanke noted, “At the same time, it’s impossible to overlook the fact that I, Robot, for all its merits, borrows shamelessly from a variety of sources — especially Blade Runner and The Matrix series. The former is hardly surprising, since director Alex Proyas has evoked that cult favorite at least twice already (The Crow and Dark City).” When looking at the latter, it’s not much of a surprise to go from Spooner’s apparently intelligent, pie-baking grandmother, played by Adrian Ricard, to the Oracle of “The Matrix.” Still, there’s not really a feel of a rip-off than a tribute and influence, and that popular culture is simply being interrupted into the happenings.

Hanke mentioned, “The biggest surprise is that it all works — or so nearly does that it seems nit-picky to complain. Smith is impossibly good in the lead, and the obligatory one-liners that seemed so arbitrary in the film’s trailer are actually held in check and nicely integrated into the script. Plus, the Hollywood Screenwriting 101 antagonistic quasi-romantic relationship between Spooner and no-nonsense scientist Susan Calvin (Moynahan) is handled with enough assurance to overcome its cliched underpinnings.”

However the most successful part of “I, Robot” is the creation of the film’s “renegade” robot, Sonny, played by Alan Tudyk. Hanke mentioned, “Sounding somewhat creepily like Hal in Kubrick’s 2001, Sonny is a CGI creation that has the kind of believable reality we find in The Lord of the Rings‘ Gollum and with the mechanical tentacles of “Doc Ock” in Spider-Man 2.”

Hanke continued, “In other words, though I, Robot occasionally succumbs to a bit of Hollywoodized cuteness, it also manages to turn an effect into a real character.” That in itself makes this film worth watching.

I really liked and enjoyed this movie when I saw it in theaters. It was definitely one of the most enjoyable summer movies that I had saw that year. If you haven’t seen this movie and you’re a Will Smith and/or robot movie fan, then you should definitely check this one out. You will love it.

Look out next week for the finale of “Robots Month.”