Why are interesting sci-fi stories so often turned into second-rate movies? Philip K. Dick has made a posthumous career out of having his work adapted into sub-par action movies like Paycheck and Impostor. I, Robot may be only "suggested" by the work of sci-fi writer Isaac Asimov, and based on an existing script retrofitted to include Asimov's famous Three Laws of Robotics, but it's still an empty, mostly dumb action movie that takes its name, at least, from a sci-fi classic.
Fans of Asimov's novel, which is more a collection of short stories than a single narrative, will doubtless find plenty to hate about I, Robot, the movie. Luckily, discerning moviegoers who have never read the novel can find plenty to hate about it, too, so at least it's not leaving anyone out.
What are the problems? Let's start with star Will Smith, who's become something of a one-man franchise when it comes to anchoring big summer sci-fi movies. His smirky, quippy presence worked in his two lighthearted Men in Black movies, and it fit nicely into the ensemble of Independence Day. But he's all wrong for the more serious I, Robot—or at least the part he plays doesn't fit with the film's relatively restrained tone. Smith's Det. Del Spooner swaggers and drops one-liners like he just walked in from the set of Bad Boys 3, but it feels out of place in a movie that attempts, however superficially, to explore philosophical and moral conundrums. Smith plays Spooner so tongue-in-cheek that half the time he seems like he's laughing at the very film the producers cast him in: "Robots? Please. You've got to be kidding me."
He's got reason to laugh, though, as the script by Jeff Vintar and Oscar-winning hack Akiva Goldsman (Lost in Space, Batman & Robin) is predictable and full of clichés. It's not much different from any other lame action movie, with Spooner as the rebel cop who won't play by the rules, investigating a death he just knows is part of a larger conspiracy, even though no one will believe him. That death is the apparent suicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), head of U.S. Robotics, the company which supplies helpful, humanoid robots to the world's populace in 2035. Spooner, being a renegade detective with a chip (wood, not silicon) on his shoulder, believes a robot killed Lanning, even though all robots are supposed to be unable to harm humans, thanks to Asimov's Three Laws.
Perhaps Spooner's problem is that he's too busy fighting the CGI robots to notice that his U.S. Robotics guide, Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) is a robot herself. Moynahan gives such a wooden, flat performance that she's frequently less expressive than the actual robots, especially Lanning's personal mechanical pal, Sonny (played by Alan Tudyk in a process similar to the one used to cast Andy Serkis as Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies).
If I, Robot is a crappy movie, then, at least it's a beautiful crappy movie, and nearly worth seeing for the special effects and set design alone. Sonny and his robot cohorts are wonderfully nuanced creations, and the future Chicago is an imposing, grandiose metropolis. Director Alex Proyas' previous films include moody genre pieces like The Crow and Dark City, but his visual sense here is far less gothic and dirty, instead full of clean lines and bright, translucent machinery. Roger Ebert famously named Dark City the best film of 1998, and if that was overreaching, it did point to Proyas' ability to carry a weakly scripted film with his visual style.
He doesn't surmount that obstacle here, though, since the visuals are less about Proyas' style than about sheer craftsmanship. Spooner complains about "poor building design" during the film's climax, and he's right, but damn if it doesn't look cool. There are moments when the seams show, but for the most part this film has some of the most impressive effects of the summer. It's too bad everything else on the screen is the same old recycled junk.