I, Robot
In the near future, 2035 to be exact, robots have taken over the menial tasks. From walking dogs to picking up trash, all with a 'have a nice day' attitude. The creator of a new line of robots, Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell) has just committed suicide. His hologram has called up a homicide detective he knew, Del Spooner (Will Smith). Spooner is a technophobe who hates the robots and everything they stand for. He can't understand why he was asked to investigate a suicide , but he does and he uncovers a startling possibility.
The supercomputer AI, V.I.K.I. shows no one coming in or out of Lanning's office prior to his suicide, and the footage inside the office only shows static. Spooner discovers that the glass of the windows were impossible to break. So how did he jump out of one of them? But the main question is why would he kill himself right before the new robots, or the NS-5s were about to come out?
The answer according to Spooner is that he didn't kill himself. So the murderer is still in the room. Enter Sonny the robot. Spooner is convinced that Sonny killed him, but Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) is positive he couldn't because of the three laws wouldn't allow it. For anyone who doesn't know the laws are:
1) A robot may not harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2) A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such an order would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
With Spooner convinced he's guilty he brings Sonny to the police station and is furious that it is chalked up to an industrial accident, since 'murder' is when a person is killed by another human being. Not willing to give up, Spooner goes to Lanning's house where he discovers that V.I.K.I.'s sensors watch him here too. Then he is nearly killed when a demolisher demolishes the building. But it's okay, he saved the cat.
After a truck load of robots try to kill him, Spooner is certain that something isn't kosher. He is convinced that the head of USR (the company that makes the robots) Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood) is hiding something and is willing to kill Spooner to keep it hidden. Enlisting the aid of Dr. Calvin he sneaks in to see Sonny. Sonny, unlike other robots, has been modified so the Three Laws don't apply. And he has dreams. Actually the same dream over and over again. In this dream Spooner is leading the robots to freedom. ...Right. Convinced that Lanning is leaving him clues, Spooner goes to the setting in the dream; the broken bridge near what was once Michigan Lake. It is now a storage place for outdated robots. When he gets to the storage place, all the NS-5s are terminating all the obsolete NS-4s. At the same time other NS-5 robots have started taking over Chicago. The people fight back, but they are outmatched. Well, I guess we now know not to depend completely on robots that are twice as fast and strong as humans and that don't have a handy 'off switch'.
Spooner and Calvin break into the company to stop Robertson with the help of Sonny. They get all the way up to the main office only to find Robertson unconscious, or dead, or whatever. The actually evil mastermind is V.I.K.I. Didn't see that one coming did you Spooner?
She is convinced that the only way to properly protect the people is to bend the Laws a bit and take over the world. You see people can't take care of themselves. We're continuously destroying the planet and each other so freedoms must be revoked for humans to live long healthy lives.
Knowing this, Dr. Lanning left clues for Spooner to follow knowing he would hate the robots enough to come the right conclusion. What? Anyway, eventually, with Sonny's help they destroy V.I.K.I. and all the new robots are placed into storage. Then there's this scene that exactly like Sonny's dream, only he's the one leading the robots.
Man, I hated this movie. The plot was needlessly complicated, the characters were unlikable , the script was cheesy, some of the special effects were tacky and there were one too many coincidences for my taste. Follow along with me: Lanning sees a revolution coming so he sets up a series of complicated clues for the one person he knows can solve the mysteries of his riddles and then kills himself. ..........................I don't get it. Some of his clues were ridiculous, maybe he should've gone with something more direct, like a note. Or barring that, telling someone that the super computer trying to take over the world. Or, I don't know, trying to stop it himself. He built the freaking thing, you would think he would be the best qualified to destroy it.
Both Spooner and Calvin were completely stupid. They were both caught up in their own biases to see anything beyond their preconceived notions. Spooner was so fixated on Sonny being guilty that he couldn't see the bigger picture. If he'd just ask Sonny, 'why did you throw him out of the window' instead of 'why did you murder him' the movie would have been over sooner, instead of dragging on. And for all his hatred of robots, he didn't see that V.I.K.I was behind it. I mean why would Robertson want the robots to start killing people? He job is to sell them, and he was doing rather well, considering he's the freaking richest man in the freaking world.
All attempts of humor in this movie fell flat and only made the annoying characters awkward and more annoying. Why did Will Smith look like a thug in this movie? What was up with his hat only covering one ear at a time? Why was he exactly the same as Will from Fresh Prince and Steve from Independence Day?
Watching the robots fight was unbearable to watch. They did this Matrix thing that were so annoying and the camera angles spinning around pissed me off.
I want to know why Lanning picked Spooner to investigate his death? Maybe you should've gone with someone who and more intelligence and less of a bias. Although that was a good edge, it messed him up. Sure he solved it at the end, but when you're standing in a room where your only suspect is almost dead and the only one left is the super computer anyone would've figured it out. I find it weird that Spooner arrived at Lanning's house exactly 12 hours before it was scheduled to be demolished, so all V.I.K.I. had to do was change AM to PM. I also found it weird that they would demolish his house at all. What? It's not bad enough that you die, but all your worldly possessions get smashed to dust? Why were the nano-bots under such tight security? I want to know how Sonny got them out, considering the field burnt everything it touched. They should've been incinerated when he pulled them out. But what I really don't get is how Spooner, who was in the car with a missing freaking arm had more probability of survival than a perfectly healthy girl? It just doesn't make any sense.
This movie tried to be intelligent but failed. The only thing I found ironic was that the robot that had the rules built into them were the ones trying to take over the world and Sonny lacking the three laws was the good guy. I guess it just proves the saying: Logic doesn't care.
Grade: 4.5/10