Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with another mostly positive review of I, ROBOT. The more trailers I see, the more I become convinced that Alex Proyas was able to pull a fun and beautiful looking film out of this, although it is still questionable just how much Asimov is going to spin in his grave. A little? A lot? Not at all? Who knows. I have faith in Proyas, so I'm looking forward to it.
hallo aicn, longtime listenner, first time caller.
i had the pleasure of attending the world premiere of I ROBOT in L.A. tonight, Westwood to be specific. I've been to a few premieres and you can usually tell whether a movie is good by the feel of the event and this one was quite festive. There was a palpable buzz and a lot of excitement, not to mention a ton of people clamoring for a glimpse of Mr. Smith.
Although it 'started' at 8 it was almost 9 by the time Tom Cruise sat down with his popcorn and the Fresh Prince sauntered in and said some kind words about Alex Proyas and the lights came down. Now, I must confess, my brothers had every Asimov book ever written in our house, but I only stared at the covers, I was too into fantasy to bother with sci fi, so I can't comment on the quality of the adaptation or interpretation or whatever the hell it was, but I sure as hell can comment on the movie, so here it goes...spoiler free dammit.
It was pretty darn good and I was half expecting it to suck. It started smoothly, save for a shot of Will in the shower post-masturbation. The future seems cool, the futuristic design is a nice mix of old and new, not everything has changed, but what has seems plausible and for the better. Chicago is a bustling metropolis where robots do the shit work and everyone else seems to get by with all their new free time. Will's a detective who apparently is the only one on the planet who doesn't like robots and when the head designer of a robotics corporation jumps through a window he is summoned to the crime scene and the investigation begins.
You know what, who needs a fucking synopsis, the bottom line is, that while there is some redundant scenes in the movie ie. ("robots are good", "no, robots are bad"), some questionable acting (Bridget Moynahan always seems to be about to start crying) , and some campy mob scenes that resembled 'West Side Story", there is a lot more to love then to hate, the movie is 80% good, and that seems to be quite a bit these days. It's no Spidey but it has some great lines, awesome sets, great special effects (the robots were fucking amazing) some excellent action scenes, and a nice little surprising moral lesson at the end.
Will Smith does fine, Bruce Greenwood is his usual brilliant self, and the main robot struggles with his lack of humantity admirably. It is definitely worth checking out, Alex Proyas did a fine job cobbling it together and while you won't run out and tatoo I Robot on your ass you will at least shrug and think 'yeah, it was pretty good'.
Sincerely,
The Shucked Oyster
