Reviews

Some reviewers on IMDb are under the impression that this movie is based on an Asimov novel, but Asimov never wrote any such book. (Weird how people all blindly follow the same assumption without checking, huh?) What Asimov did publish was a collection of his previous short stories, all with a robot-versus-humanity theme, and this movie continues that theme, using only the three basic robot 'laws' as originally conceived by the great author.

Yes, the movie's plot line isn't exactly original, but the quality special effects and production design are fabulous. No one ever expected this to be an intellectual experience, but as high-budget summer action movies go, this has to be the best of the bunch so far.

Scriptwriters have spent time creating depth of character and back-story for each personality (most mainstream blockbusters don't bother with script nuances) and this pays off. The high class action-adventure scenes are enhanced by spectacular CGI effects. Scene after scene is breath-taking in its scale and we actually find ourselves feeling sorry for the robots at some points.

Any kind of audience emotional engagement is a superb boost for a mainstream summer movie, which is usually pitched at brain dead level - and this movie succeeds where others fail.

I, Robot is well worth the price of a ticket. Will Smith and his female co-star do an excellent job of acting with blue-screen characters and deserve recognition for this. It ain't easy! Give the man a break. He couldn't have performed any better.

All in all, the most enjoyable and entertaining mainstream movie entertainment of Summer 2004.

Oh dear. A great premise for a movie, loosely based on the true story of the immigrant who was stranded at Paris airport due to diplomatic bureaucracy, however Spielberg reduces the whole story to implausible sugary mush.

No doubt the director, famed for his heavy-handed and childlike emotional manipulation, thought he was improving the drama by adding a love interest in the shape of Catherine Zeta-Jones, but no one in their right mind could believe that such an attractive and well-groomed woman would ever fall for the shabby, caricature Russian immigrant as played by Tom Hanks. Such a waste of talent and money.

Spielberg obviously believes that his audience has a mental age of 10, and an exceptionally low IQ, as that is probably the only target group that would enjoy this very silly and soppy romantic drama. Shame on you, Steven Spielberg, for offering adult cinema-goers this sugary pap!

Hanks' performance is no worse and no better than his recent stint in The Ladykillers, i.e. mildly amusing in a cartoonish sort of way. If I were Russian I would be seriously insulted by the bordering-on racist portrayal. Miraculously, Hank's character moved from speaking almost no English to being extremely fluent within a very short period, and gaining a posse of bumbling friends within the airport. The genre should have been listed as fantasy rather than romantic drama. And as for the comedy aspect - I seem to have totally missed it, unless it's deemed funny to laugh at foreigners in a difficult predicament.

With some character development and a decent script, this could have been an interesting film, however it's two leads were sadly wasted in this saccharine turkey.

This is utter claptrap. At 3 hours long, I cannot imagine anyone sitting though this drivel until the end. All the *action* (ha ha) takes place on a painted stage. Has Lars von Trier confused cinema with theatre?? Or radio?? I think so. This may as well have been a radio play for all the visual stimulation it offers. However, if you require a good 3-hr sleep, any cinema showing this film is the place to go. ZZZZZZZZ