I, ROBOT

Recommended, if you like to see a lot of scrabbling, ant-like robots swinging from the rafters.

Most of my Quality viewing these days comes to me via Netflix. However, when I'm between shipments, or in the mood for something lite, I still resort to the video store. (They won't be with us much longer, I suppose. Like the slot-car parlors of my youth...)

I, ROBOT delivered exactly what I expected, so I have no complaints. It was "inspired" by Isaac Azimov's story of the same name, and it gives a lot of attention to his three laws of robotics (while crediting them to one of the film's characters). We see these laws as text in the opening credits, and are told about them in detail and get to read the slogan "3 Laws Safe" emblazoned on the trucks of US Robotics. If you've seen the trailer, though, you'd not be surprised to find these laws being violated. Why else would they need Will Smith?

Smith is the very model of a certain kind of smart-ass movie cop, who insults other cops, his boss and the CEO of US Robotics ("Wow, the richest man in the world. I've seen you on TV!") without serious consequences. The story is not particularly surprising, but it moves along at a brisk clip, and has at least one action sequence that was worth watching twice: Smith in his Audi, pursued through a tunnel by two gigantic automated vehicles, each one carrying hordes of robots.

I liked the irony of Smith as the robot-hating bigot, and I liked Alan Tudyk (who played Wash in the Firefly TV series) as the voice of a thoughtful robot named Sonny.

So it met my expectations throughout, and exceeded them once or twice. It's interesting that the same story also inspired an episode of the original Outer Limits. There, it was a courtroom drama, considering whether a robot could be charged with murder. That's the fundamental premise here as well, but in the film, the question is explored without benefit of judge and jury.