X
- 2004
- PG-13
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 55 m
- 2004
- PG-13
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 55 m
Summary In the year 2035, robots are an everyday household item, and everyone trusts them, except one, slightly paranoid detective (Smith) investigating what he alone believes is a crime perpetrated by a robot. The case leads him to discover a far more frightening threat to the human race. (20th Century Fox)
Directed By: Alex Proyas
Written By: Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman, Isaac Asimov
- 2004
- PG-13
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 55 m
- 2004
- PG-13
- Twentieth Century Fox
- 1 h 55 m
I, Robot
59
8.0
Where to Watch
Summary In the year 2035, robots are an everyday household item, and everyone trusts them, except one, slightly paranoid detective (Smith) investigating what he alone believes is a crime perpetrated by a robot. The case leads him to discover a far more frightening threat to the human race. (20th Century Fox)
Directed By: Alex Proyas
Written By: Jeff Vintar, Akiva Goldsman, Isaac Asimov
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 38 Critic Reviews
59
50% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
47% Mixed
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 38 Critic Reviews
59
50% Positive
19 Reviews
19 Reviews
47% Mixed
18 Reviews
18 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Fabulous mental escape. It's fun and playful, rather than dark and foreboding. And there doesn't seem to be an original cyber-bone in the movie's body. But it's put together in a fabulous package.
A summer action movie that has a brain and doesn't let it atrophy? Fan me, I'm fainting!
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 429 User Ratings
8.0
79% Positive
340 Ratings
340 Ratings
17% Mixed
71 Ratings
71 Ratings
4% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 429 User Ratings
8.0
79% Positive
340 Ratings
340 Ratings
17% Mixed
71 Ratings
71 Ratings
4% Negative
18 Ratings
18 Ratings
I just watched Aquaman and was so disappointed in the whole thing,especially the CG! Now this movie comes on TV, i had never seen it...i was shocked to find out it was made in 2004! CG was way better than Aquaman made in 2019! The robots look real, acting is pretty good and the whole thing works. Interesting story line for and great camera work. I loved it. Must watch.
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There are not very many movies that have everything you look for. I, Robot is one of those rare films. It has action, suspense, drama, romance, robots, Will Smith shooting stuff, and great lines.
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It's a high-tech thriller that really works.
A cluttered, awkward blockbuster that's just smart enough to get itself into trouble.
I, Robot strives to be so many things that it ultimately falls away to nothing, a heap of expensive metal parts.
A humans vs. robots saga that feels machine-made, I, Robot looks to have been assembled from the spare parts of dozens of previous sci-fi pictures.
If you see it, the sequel will be your fault.
Saw it once many many years ago but I remember enjoying it. I'm just adding this to list of movies I've seen for sure
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When robots finally take over the world (assuming they haven't already) we will not be able to say we weren't warned. Every year, Hollywood studios present dire scenarios in which androids, computers and artificial-intelligence applications run amok and enslave the human race, but the public never seems to get the message. Perhaps "I, Robot," a hectic, half-baked science-fiction thriller that opens today nationwide, will succeed where the "Terminator" and "Matrix" movies failed, and alert us to the grave danger that our innocent-looking toasters, vacuum cleaners, smart cars and laptop computers really pose.
At the same time, "I, Robot," directed by Alex Proyas and "suggested by" Isaac Asimov's 1950 book of short stories, may inspire some tenderness toward the technological doodads that run our lives. This is because, like other movies in this dystopian vein (including "Blade Runner" and "A.I."), it proposes that machines have feelings, too. The robots in this familiar future (the movie takes place in Chicago in 2035) have not only the intelligence necessary to turn against their human creators, but also the capacity to dream, to love and to suffer. At the screening I attended, cellphones and laptops were confiscated at the door. Supposedly, this was to prevent piracy, but I'm not so sure. Maybe 20th Century Fox wanted to make sure those clever gadgets didn't get any ideas, or maybe the studio just wanted to protect their feelings.
Del Spooner, a brooding, wise-cracking homicide detective played with weary action-hero bravado by Will Smith, shows no such sensitivity. He is, in fact, a raging anti-robot bigot, harboring a grudge against the helpful, polite machines that shuffle around the city running errands and doing menial work. Early in the movie, he chases down a robot he mistakenly believes has stolen a woman's purse, only to discover that he has been guilty of technological profiling. He is repeatedly scolded for his prejudice — by his grandmother (Adrian Ricard), by his boss (Chi McBride) and by the sinister head of the top robot-producing corporation (Bruce Greenwood) — which gives the movie an interesting undercurrent of racial irony.
Spooner's attitude also revives some familiar conundrums of sci-fi philosophy, which the script, written by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman, tackles in lengthy expository scenes. Where is the boundary between the human and the nonhuman? How does the technological blurring of this boundary affect our ethical conceptions of humanity and inhumanity?
These questions are batted around in a series of arguments between Spooner and Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), who meet in the course of Spooner's investigation into the death of a kindly old scientist.
Spooner suspects that the man, a friend of his, was murdered by a robot, a possibility that seems at once logical and unthinkable, since the company's robots are governed by three laws, the first of which is that they can never harm a human. But the main suspect, a soulful prototype named Sonny (a computer-enhanced special effect voiced by Alan Tudyk), has developed a mind and a will of his own, which makes him a harbinger of apocalyptic danger as well as a friendly sidekick.
"You're the dumbest smart person I've ever met," Spooner says to Dr. Calvin during one of their debates, and "I, Robot" is one of the smarter dumb movies I've seen in a while. Its vision of the future is a grab-bag of borrowings from other pictures: the evil corporation from "Robocop," the urban consumer environment from "Minority Report," the sleek and agile killer robots from the last two "Terminator" movies, the climactic riot from, of all things, "Gangs of New York."
A straightforward genre exercise, directed with more competence than inspiration, "I, Robot" lacks both the intellectual rigor and the soulful sublimity of "A.I.," but it nonetheless allows some genuine ideas and emotions to pop up amid the noise and clutter. The overwrought ending tries to bring these into some kind of coherence, and the filmmakers deserve some credit for the effort, even though "I, Robot" makes less sense the more you think about it.
Which, I suppose, is just as silly as taking the film seriously as a cautionary tale. Still, this kind of movie presents a troubling paradox, since it is an example of the very phenomenon it purports to warn against. Dramatizing the threat of runaway technology seems to demand ever greater technological innovation, as digitized special effects increasingly push human beings off screen.
Sonny, with his mournful blue eyes and his smooth features, nearly upstages Mr. Smith and Ms. Moynahan, and it is possible to foresee a day when his kind will tire of being pushed around by flesh-and-blood actors and directors. They will organize their own guilds, take creative control over their own movies and, eventually, turn their mechanical minds to film criticism. Now I'm scared. I hope it's not too late.
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Production Company
Twentieth Century Fox,
Mediastream Vierte Film GmbH & Co. Vermarktungs KG,
Davis Entertainment,
Laurence Mark Productions,
Overbrook Entertainment,
Canlaws Productions
Release Date Jul 16, 2004
Duration 1 h 55 m
Rating PG-13
Tagline What will you do with yours?
Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 1 Nomination
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA
• 2 Nominations
Golden Trailer Awards
• 2 Nominations
