My Favourite Movies: I, Robot

I remember sitting in the big screen of our local multi-plex waiting for this film to start. I had, as usual, avoided most of the incessant publicity regarding it but still sat there with quite a bit of trepidation. I grew up on the Asimov stories this movie was ‘inspired’ by and knew what Hollywood normally did with its source material – anything from simply using the title and ditching the storyline of adding incongruous elements to make it sexier or some such nonsense.

At least I, Robot managed to avoid the first trap and actually seemed to use some of the source material. Susan Calvin started out as I remember her – cold, emotionless and at a loss in human company. She was always much more at home with robots than with people. The famous Three Laws of Robotics were there – firmly at the heart of the movie which impressed me. The feel of the movie certainly hit the spot and relaxed me enough to accept the second half of the film which was pretty much the bog-standard Hollywood fare of chases, explosions and set-piece action scenes.

The transition from lab-coated Calvin to leather jacket machine gun wielding Calvin was – well silly just doesn’t cover it. It was quite frankly ridiculous and probably had poor Isaac spinning in his grave. But I swallowed hard and forgave this gross travesty because of the underlying cleverness of the film. Yes, I thought that this was a clever Hollywood film, which is why it made it into my Favourite Movies list. I think it must have been written by someone who had actually read Asimov and what’s more even understood what he was getting at. In the stories – as far as I can remember as I read them 30 years ago – there was always a tension in the Three Laws centred around the First Law that a robot cannot harm a human being or by inaction allow a human being to be harmed. That’s the important bit – by inaction…. Robots must protect humanity – even if they have to harm some humans in the process. They cannot stand idly by and let us have wars, firearms or car accidents if any of it can be avoided – which it can be if robots run our lives for us – for our own benefit of course. This was the clever underlying plot of the movie and it was handled very well indeed – despite all of the running around Will Smith did wise-cracking as he fired his guns in all directions.

Once you get past all of the razzmatazz, glitter and noise, once you see beyond the action adventure genre this movie easily slides into you can see that some thought went into its construction. That’s what I liked about it more than anything else. That’s why I bought the DVD and that’s why I can watch it over and over again – because it’s clever. I do hope it was intentionally that way…. And that I’m not just reading too much into it…It wouldn’t be the first time! [grin]