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In the near future, when pretty much everybody has a service bot, homicide detective Spooner (Will Smith), a robo-phobe (for a really pathetic reason, by the way) - who has no service bot of course - is called to the "apparent suicide" of his sort-of mentor Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell), top robot developer at US Robotics. Now everybody, especially US Rotobics head Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), wants to see this swept under the rug as quickly as possible, but Spooner suspects the suicide to be no suicide at all, and ultimately finds a robot, Sonny (Alan Tudyk) in Lanning's lab that shows violent tendencies and apparently doesn't follow the three laws of robotics. After an extensive chase, Sonny can be apprehended, but soon enough US Robotics have him released and give Spooner a gag order, since they can't afford any bad publicity considering they're about to roll out their new series of robots. But the whole incident has one person thinking, Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), top developer at US Robotics, who soon becomes Spooner's ally in the inside. And Spooner, while investigating, realises he's following a crumb trail laid out by Dr. Lanning, a crumb trail Lanning's not quite suicide might only be part of it - and it all leads to ... the robot revolution, with Sonny not the enemy but humankinds only ally in the robot world. But with robots being everywhere, what chance does humankind stand - or rather Spooner and Susan, as they seem to be the only two fighting ...

I freely admit, to my regret I've yet to read Isaac Asimov's ground-breaking I, Robot - with which it's said though this movie has little in common apart from the laws of robotics and a few character names and Easter eggs. What we got here then rather than an adaptation of a classic of sci fi literature is a rather generic blockbuster that goes out of its way to be as formulaic as possible, up to the point where it features a particularly far-fetched scene of "saving the cat", where spectacle is favoured over content (one has to admit though, well-executed spectacle that holds its own even 15 years later), and that's littered with some really embarrassing product placement. Now the acting's rather decent in the film, even if Will Smith at times seems to be torn between doing it seriously or going for the joke, but the script just lacks any good characters, and especially Spooner's reason for hating robots - he has been saved by one from drowning that should have (in his mind) rather saved a drowning girl - is really ... elusive, to put is mildly.

All this is really a shame, as the film looks good, features some fine setpieces, is decently paced - just let down by a story that feels more like lowest common denominator than Isaac Asimov.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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