Just saw this. I dug it, though I have to admit that it didn’t meet my expectations. Worth seeing again–the special effects and cinematography were fun–but the characters were so two-dimensional:
- Will Smith
- “Hi, I’m the caricature of a cop that is angry, but cares. Let me say something smug and hip.”
- Scientist Chick
- “All scientists are devoid of emotion, and, being a scientist, I therefore have ice water flowing through my veins. However, I did see Will Smith’s cute butt at the start of the film, so I will inevitably succumb to his wiley charms.”
- CEO Guy
- “I’m the Man, with little time for idle chit-chat and a plan to make boatloads of cash with my capitalist agenda for world domination.”
- Robot
- “I…I’m alive! I’m a real boy! The hiiiiiiiills are aliiiiiiiive with the sound of muuuuuuusiiiiiiiiic.”
- Doubting Police Chief
- “Will Smith, I don’t believe you–all robots are always clearly incapable of doing any wrongdoing, ever–so I am taking your badge. However, you may continue to run amok through the city with your firearm.”
- Will Smith
- “Argh! I’m a lose cannon! I will wave my gun around and disdain authority!”
- Scientist Chick
- “You’re completely irresistabl–er, irrational. I find the cold logic of the machines better company than your manaical ramblings. Yet, I will entertain your absurd consipiracy theories until the special effects action sequences carry this movie to the final credits.”
- CEO Guy
- *knocked unconscious*
- Robot
- “Why do humans cry?”
- Scientist Chick
- “I will openly imply that your personal growth through this drama seriously increases your chances of a second date.”
- Will Smith
- *uses street-smarts and Luddite values to save the day*
- Robot
- *recites original poetry*
- Isaac Asimov
- *spins in grave*
Fin.
9 Comments
I was kinda going back and worth whether I would spend the 20$ its gonna cost to go see it (ticket, lunch out, small popcorn) or wait and spend the 14.99$ to grab it on DVD.
That sounds like every other scifi robot movie that has come out in the past 15 years. And i’m tired of seeing the main characters fall for each other. I can’t think of a movie i’ve seen recently where that didn’t happen. And its starting to drive me nuts.
Are you going to see it again because of the special effects, or because it was a decent book-to-movie story?
I’ve really come to hate special effects. So many movies strive on them now. The movies I enjoy the most are the huge special effects movies where you don’t even notice the special effects because they fit into the story so well. Lord of the Rings is a good example of this.
Mike.
I will probably catch it, but I expect disappointment. From what I hear, the script itself was approaching blade runner levels of cool, but the film was hijacked by Will Smith to make it an action movie with will smith-isms. I hate it when they do that.
Speaking of which, how about that whole “Green Lantern played by Jack Black as a comedy similar to the Mask” thing that Warner is doing. How misguided is THAT?
Mike, I’d see it again purely for the special effects–which were extremely Matrixy. I didn’t have any love for the characters within the first 10 minutes of the flick, which is usually a solid indication that the movie will be mediocre at best (confer the recent release of Troy).
Special effects do a lot to artificially drive a story. I read a book recently where the writer considered charisma to be a liability–not an asset–of a good leader, which must be overcome. I think good film makers should take a similar perspective on special effects: they’re an liability to the story, which must be overcome.
Ryan, I actually really like Will Smith, with his non-threatening good looks and cross-market appeal. I was disappointed, then, to see him try to play a character that is so poorly suited to his personality. Cocky and pretentious he carries off with flair, but bitter and haunted?–that’s a reach. He probably would have been able to overcome it, though, if he had spent as much time with his acting coach for this movie as he did with his personal trainer.
Did anyone else think Spiderman 2 was really weak? And what became of DJ Jazzy Jeff? Tomatoes in a few weeks probably not in time for the move, though.
ftp://ftp.smoovenet.com/pub/lardlad/sounds/season12/treehugger10.mp3
Ken, man… it’s been a LONG TIME since we had you’re witty anylsises of stuff! This is so hillarious! I still wanna see the movie. Like when I saw Jurrasic Park 3. Ok, that’s HORRENDOUS movie, BUT… It gave me what I came to see. Dinosaurs chasing and eating people. That’s all I wanted to see in tha tmovie and boy did it deliver! So, I Robot- I wanna see robots breaking stuff and things blowing up and some shootings.
I’m so deep. For a guy who wrote a 75 page film anaylsis as a thesis to graduate with a Media degree (mostly film), I’m really deep huh?
If nothing blows up in the movie, I’ll be sad though.
Ken’s so witty. Here’s another good review: http://lookingcloser.blogspot.com/2004/07/im-not-impressed-with-robot.html
Russ, I actually thought that Spiderman 2 was actually much better than the first. I know that’s not saying much, but I really enjoyed the action sequences.
Admittedly, though, Sam Raimi was a bit weak on character development and plot. But then, what do you expect from the director of Army of Darkness and Darkman?
http://us.imdb.com/name/nm0000600/
Anyway, Tom put it best when I told him I’d seen the movie for a second time with the family in North Carolina. His response: “Yeah, but what did you talk about afterwards?”
Jai, *blush* thanks.
I love movies that blow stuff up as much as the next guy. I just think that they could have blown stuff up so much more effectively than they did in I, Robot.
I mean, who cares about how the little boy ended up on the Jurassic island at the start of JP3? I just want to see Téa Leoni shred talking dinosaurs with an uzi! The wonderful thing about Jurassic Park 3 was that it didn’t go to great lengths to develop characters. Just dinosoars eating people.
I, Robot could have benefited from this kind of direction. Will Smith’s bad-guy cop character (which is painfully close to Brendan Fraser doing his best Keanu Reaves impression) is so artificial it makes the robots burst from the screen with lifelike vitality. Let’s just jump straight to the part where the robots incite city-wide mob violence outside the faux US Robotics building, shall we?
Oh well. If we want a movie featuring frenzied robot distruction without all the trappings of a plot, at least we can always look forward to this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121766/