I liked the nice twist at the end, that everything just happened for our own good : )

A pretty competent thriller. It’s really not as bad as the reviews would have you believe. I was pretty surprised to find out that Alex Proyas, the director, also made the Crow and Dark City.

I, Robot is based on the Isaac Asimov novel of the same name. The year is 2035, the setting: Chicago. U.S. Robotics (USR) is a highly successful manufacturer of robots. These robots have not only made some jobs obsolete, they’re becoming household appliances as well, tending to their owners’ needs so long as they comply with the 3 laws of robotics:

1. A robot may not harm a human or, by inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders 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.

Del Spooner (Smith) is a detective prejudiced towards robots, unlike the rest of the population. We learn where this prejudice stems from as the story unfolds, but in the meantime, Spooner’s colleagues think he’s paranoid when it comes to robots.

Spooner receives a phone call and goes to the USR offices to find Dr. Alfred Lanning (Cromwell), the robots’ designer, has committed suicide. The detective is convinced it was murder, and furthermore, that the murderer was a robot. With the help of Dr. Susan Calvin (Moynahan), a USR staff psychologist whose specialty is robotic psyches, Spooner attempts to solve the case.

I have a fondness for movies set in Chicago, and this is no exception. The city is recognizable, but buildings have been added and the el is updated. Many elements remain familiar, such as the interiors of people’s homes. This sense of familiarity makes the viewer comfortable with the idea that robots could easily be a part of our everyday lives.
The robots are agile and capable of physical feats that make them seem like very powerful insects, especially when gathered in large numbers. The computer animation is excellent.
A really fun movie if not a little predictable. Would make a great stocking stuffer, though!

I think they did a good job of taking some key themes from Isaac Asimov’s famous book of short vignettes and turning it into a suspenseful story.

I was even fine with the addition of Will Smith’s character and his backstory. However the dialogue was painfully bad. They really should’ve worked on that more. The effects were pretty good (I’m still not a huge CG fan), I especially liked how they handled Sonny’s “face”.

The most disappointing was the obvious product placement for the car and the shoes. I am a huge fan and (before they doubled the price) owned 4 different pairs of Converse, but I was still offended at how much they were pushed in the film. They served no purpose at all in furthering the plot and were merely there to sell the product. Overall, it was worth watching. Next time though, I wish they would concentrate on the dialogue as much as they obsess over trying to wow us with the “special effects”. I give it a 7 minus 1 for product placement.

Balh. Forgettable.

While it’s a good sci-fi action flick, it is worth noting that this movie has nothing to do with the book of the same name.