Originally published 7/15/2004
I, Robot
Director: Alex Proyas
Writers: Screen story by Jeff Vintar, screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, suggested by Isaac Asimov’s book
Producers: John Davis, Topher Dow, Wyck Godfrey, Laurence Mark
Stars: Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Tudyk, James Cromwell, Bruce Greenwood
The Dr. Susan Calvin I knew never wore leather pants, or blasted away at hordes of attacking robots with a big futuristic gun, or took gratuitous showers. I never imagined her being as photogenic as Bridget Moynahan, either. But comparisons like that between this big expensive summer movie and Isaac Asimov’s I Robot, a thought-provoking compendium of short stories, are a deadly trap. Best to stay away.
What we get with this admittedly exciting, visually-rich, action-packed movie has almost nothing to do with any of the story material from that book – although a sequence in a robot maintenance facility with an unaccounted-for extra occupant is a clear nod to the story/chapter “Little Lost Robot”. What the filmmakers have done is plug a few character names, like Lanning and Robertson, and of course, Dr. Susan Calvin, into an explosion-filled scenario. But more importantly, they used the 3 Laws of Robotics, one of Asimov’s most enduring creations.
They state that a robot cannot harm (or allow to be harmed) a human being, must obey a human’s orders unless those orders conflict with the first law, and must protect its own existence providing it doesn’t conflict with the first or second law. It’s an ingeniously simple logical construct that allowed Asimov, in his words, to write robot stories that weren’t all “CLANK CLANK AARGH!” monster tales. He preferred idea-driven pieces about what would happen over the years to people in a society that had robots serving and protecting it, and the consequences of monkeying with those laws. Every writer in the genre since has owed something to him because of this.
To its credit, this movie, though it has more than a bit of the clank clank aargh, is exploring similar ideas. In order to gain access to the kind of budget dollars it takes to depict its world, it adds the action and gags that studios consider required elements. Will Smith, playing robotophobic homicide detective Del Spooner, cracks many, too many, of his trademark sassy jokes. But there’s something a little more, there – this isn’t Men in Black, we sense that he acts this way not out of joviality, but real hostility.
Spooner hates robots, suspects that their cold, logical perfection is too easily admired, and has become something of a luddite as a result – he listens to CD’s, insists on driving manually most of the time, and takes pride in his “vintage” 2004 Converse sneakers. We will learn, naturally in a tender moment, all about why he has this attitude.
He thinks this is exactly why the suicide “note” (really an interactive suicide hologram, a novel invention) of U.S. Robotics’ brilliant chief designer Dr. Lanning (James Cromwell) asked for him by name. There’s more going on than meets the eye, and Spooner’s prejudice (“I think you just don’t like their kind” opines one character) makes him capable of conceiving the inconceivable – that a robot might have committed a murder.
There’s an unusual prototype hiding in Lanning’s lab – he calls himself Sonny (Alan Tudyk, replaced by a digital “costume” a la Gollum in Lord of the Rings), claims to have dreams, seems to experience emotion, and has been outfitted with a second positronic brain which allows him to “ignore” the 3 Laws if he wants to. Sonny is full of surprises, self-aware but childishly helpless in trying to sort out his feelings, and is easily the most sympathetic character in the movie, even when you suspect he might be a killer.
Why would Lanning build such a machine? It’s a critical time for U.S. Robots, emphasizes its CEO, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood) – they’re about to roll out the NS5, their most sophisticated robot yet, and soon millions of them will be walking dogs, emptying trash, and cooking sweet potato pie (Spooner is disgusted that his Granny turns this duty over to her mechanical man). There’s immense pressure to declare Lanning a depressed crackpot, “Sonny” an ill-conceived experiment requiring destruction, and the whole matter closed from there.
But of course, Spooner isn’t convinced. And of course, his angry supervisor (Chi McBride) dismisses his wild ravings and asks for his badge. Even the future isn’t resistant to dull screenwriting clichés – million-dollar hack Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin, Lost in Space) is too set in his ways for that.
Thankfully, while the plot points carrying us through the story are routine, the story itself is going somewhere pretty damned imaginative, and we’re in the hands of the great director Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City). There’s a palpable difference between directors who shoot action sequences that are only informed by other action sequences, and directors who come into each sequence with an untethered imagination, ready to make them unique and special.
Proyas is decidedly the latter – the world of the future he depicts is heavily influenced by Minority Report (and the NS5’s look like what might result if your iMac grew legs and a face and tried to kill you) – but the money sequences of the film are each top-notch in their own way. In one, Spooner ends up on the business end of a construction robot that makes us long for a live-action Transformers movie. In another, a car chase features vehicles with spherical wheels that can maneuver in astonishing ways.
By the end, when hordes of robots are massed in the streets, brawling with people, you might think – Asimov never wrote a lick of this. But when the villain of the piece emerges, explains why everything is happening, and declares, “my logic is undeniable!” Asimov, grand master of science fiction, would have recognized why that’s a very believable thing for that character to say.