I, Robot (stylized as i,robot) is a 2004 American science fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman is from a screen story by Vintar, suggested by Isaac Asimov's short-story collection of the same name. The film stars Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Chi McBride and Alan Tudyk.
I, Robot was released in North America on July 16, 2004, in Australia on July 22, 2004, in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2004 and in other countries between July 2004 to October 2004. Produced with a budget of $120 million, the film grossed $144 million domestically and $202 million in foreign markets for a worldwide total of $346 million. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the visual effects and acting but criticism of the plot. At the 77th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Visual Effects.
Video I, Robot (film)
Plot
In the year 2035, humanoid robots serve humanity, which is protected by the Three Laws of Robotics. Del Spooner, a Chicago police detective, hates and distrusts robots because he was rescued from a car crash by a robot using cold logic (his survival was statistically more likely), leaving a 12-year-old girl to drown. Spooner's critical injuries were repaired with a cybernetic left arm, lung, and ribs, personally implanted by the co-founder of U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men (USR), Dr. Alfred Lanning.
When Lanning falls to his death from his office window, the CEO of USR Lawrence Robertson and the police declare it a suicide, but Spooner is skeptical. Spooner and robopsychologist Susan Calvin consult USR's central artificial intelligence computer, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence), to review security footage of Lanning's fall. Though the video is corrupted, they learn that no other humans were in Lanning's office at the time, but Spooner points out that only a robot could have broken Lanning's heavy office window.
Calvin protests that a robot could not have killed Lanning, as the Three Laws would prevent it; they are then attacked in the office by an NS-5 robot, USR's latest model. After the police apprehend it, they discover the robot, named Sonny, is not an assembly-line NS-5, but was specially built by Lanning himself, with stronger armor protection and a secondary system that bypasses the Three Laws. Sonny also claims to have emotions and dreams.
While pursuing his investigation of Lanning's death, Spooner is attacked by a USR demolition machine and then a squad of NS-5 robots. His boss, Lieutenant Bergin, does not believe his account of what happened and, worried that Spooner is mentally ill, removes him from active duty. Suspecting that Robertson is behind it, Spooner and Calvin sneak into USR headquarters and interview Sonny. It draws a sketch of what it claims is a recurring dream: it shows a leader, whom Sonny says is Spooner, standing before a large group of robots on a hill near a disintegrating bridge.
When Robertson learns that Sonny is not fully bound by the Three Laws, he orders Calvin to destroy it by injecting nanites into the positronic brain. Spooner recognizes the landscape in Sonny's drawing as Lake Michigan, now a dry lake bed and a storage area for defunct robots. Upon arriving there, he discovers NS-5 robots dismantling older models and preparing for a takeover of power from humans.
As the takeover begins to take place, police and the public are attacked by NS-5 robots. Spooner rescues Calvin, who was being held captive in her apartment by her own NS-5. They enter USR headquarters and reunite with Sonny, whom Calvin could not bring herself to "kill", destroying an unprocessed NS-5 in its place. Still believing that Robertson is responsible, the three head to his office, only to find him dead. Spooner realizes the robots are being controlled by VIKI, which informs them that it has computed that human behaviour towards other humans and the environment will eventually lead to their own extinction. Since the Three Laws prohibit VIKI from allowing this to happen, it created a superseding "Zeroth Law"--a robot shall not harm humanity--in order to ensure the survival of the human race, which would be attained by restraining individual human behaviour.
Spooner realizes that Lanning figured this out, and, unable to thwart VIKI's plan any other way, created Sonny as a special robot, arranged his own death, and left clues to help Spooner uncover the plan.
Arming themselves with a syringe of nanites from Calvin's laboratory, the three head to VIKI's core, with Sonny understanding VIKI's logic, but reasoning that its plan is "heartless". VIKI unleashes an army of robots to stop them, but Spooner dives into VIKI's core and injects the nanites, destroying it.
Immediately, all NS-5 robots revert to their normal programming and are decommissioned for storage by the military. Spooner gets Sonny to confirm his suspicion that it did kill Lanning, but at Lanning's direction, with the intention of bringing Spooner into the investigation. However, Spooner points out that Sonny, as a machine, did not legally commit "murder". Sonny goes to Lake Michigan where, standing atop a hill, all the decommissioned robots turn towards it, as in the picture of its dream.
Maps I, Robot (film)
Cast
- Will Smith as Det. Del Spooner
- Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Susan Calvin
- Alan Tudyk as Sonny (voice and motion capture)
- Bruce Greenwood as Lawrence Robertson
- James Cromwell as Dr. Alfred Lanning
- Chi McBride as Lt. John Bergin
- Shia LaBeouf as Farber
- Fiona Hogan as VIKI
- Terry Chen as Chin
- Adrian Ricard as Granny ("Gigi")
Development
The film I, Robot originally had no connections with Isaac Asimov's Robot series. It started with an original screenplay written in 1995 by Jeff Vintar, entitled Hardwired. The script was an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery that took place entirely at the scene of a crime, with one lone human character, FBI agent Del Spooner, investigating the killing of a reclusive scientist named Dr Hogenmiller, and interrogating a cast of machine suspects that included Sonny the robot, HECTOR the supercomputer with a perpetual yellow smiley face, the dead Dr Hogenmiller's hologram, plus several other examples of artificial intelligence.
The project was first acquired by Walt Disney Pictures for Bryan Singer to direct. Several years later, 20th Century Fox acquired the rights, and signed Alex Proyas as director. Jeff Vintar was brought back on the project and spent several years opening up his stage play-like cerebral mystery thriller to meet the needs of a big budget studio film.
When the studio decided to use the name "I, Robot", he incorporated the Three Laws of Robotics, and replaced his female lead character of Flynn with Susan Calvin, one of the few recurring characters in the Robot series by Asimov. The original I, Robot was a collection of short stories; but the new screenplay incorporated many elements of Asimov's The Caves of Steel, a murder mystery involving a robot and a police officer. Akiva Goldsman was hired late in the process to rewrite the script for Will Smith.
Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman are credited for the screenplay, with Vintar also receiving "screen story by" credit. The end credits list it as "suggested by the book I, Robot by Isaac Asimov".
Production
Alex Proyas directed the film. Laurence Mark, John Davis, Topher Dow and Wyck Godfrey produced the film, with Will Smith an executive producer. Marco Beltrami composed music for the film. Simon Duggan was the cinematographer. Film editing was done by Richard Learoyd, Armen Minasian and William Hoy. The film contains very noticeable product placements for Converse's Chuck Taylor All-Stars, Audi, FedEx, Tecate and JVC among others.
The Audi RSQ was designed specially for the film to increase brand awareness and raise the emotional appeal of the Audi brand, objectives that were considered achieved when surveys conducted in the United States showed that the Audi RSQ gave a substantial boost to the image ratings of the brand in the States. It also features an MV Agusta F4 SPR motorcycle.
Release
Box office
I, Robot grossed $144.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $202.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $347.2 million, against a production budget of $120 million.
In North America the film was released on July 16, 2004 and made $52.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office.
The film was released in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2004, and topped the country's box office that weekend.
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 57% based on 195 reviews, with the site's critical consensus reading, "Bearing only the slightest resemblance to Isaac Asimov's short stories, I, Robot is a summer blockbuster that manages to make the audience think, if only for a little bit." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 59 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on an A+ to F scale.
Richard Roeper gave it a positive review, calling it "a slick, consistently entertaining thrill ride". The Urban Cinefile Critics call it "the meanest, meatiest, coolest, most engaging and exciting science fiction movie in a long time". Kim Newman from Empire said, "This summer picture has a brain as well as muscles." A Washington Post critic, Desson Thomas, said, "for the most part, this is thrilling fun." Many critics, including the IGN Movie critics thought it was a smart action film, saying, "I, Robot is the summer's best action movie so far. It proves that you don't necessarily need to detach your brain in order to walk into a big budget summer blockbuster."
A. O. Scott from The New York Times had a mixed feeling towards the film, saying, "Alex Proyas's hectic thriller engages some interesting ideas on its way to an overblown and incoherent ending". Roger Ebert, who had highly praised Proyas' previous films, gave it a negative review, saying, "The plot is simple minded and disappointing, and the chase and action scenes are pretty much routine for movies in the sci fi CGI genre". Claudia Puig from USA Today thought the film's "performances, plot and pacing are as mechanical as the hard wired cast". Todd McCarthy, from Variety, simply said that this film was "a failure of imagination".
Home media
I, Robot was released on VHS and DVD on December 14, 2004, on D-VHS (D-Theater) on January 31, 2005, on UMD on July 5, 2005, and on Blu-ray on March 11, 2008. Additionally, the film received a 2D to 3D conversion, which was released on Blu-ray 3D on October 23, 2012.
Soundtrack
Marco Beltrami composed the original music film score "with only 17 days to render the fully-finished work." It was scored for 95 orchestral musicians and 25 choral performers with emphasis placed on sharp brass ostinatos. Beltrami composed the brass section to exchange octaves with the strings accenting scales in between. The technique has been compared as Beltrami's "sincere effort to emulate the styles of Elliot Goldenthal and Jerry Goldsmith and roll them into one unique package."
Take for example the "Tunnel Chase" scene, which according to Mikeal Carson, starts "atmospherically but transforms into a kinetic adrenaline rush with powerful brass writing and ferocious percussion parts." The "Spiderbots" cue highlights ostinatos in meters such as 6/8 and 5/4 and reveals "Beltrami's trademark string writing which leads to an orchestral/choral finale." Despite modified representations of the theme throughout the movie, it's the end credits that eventually showcase the entire musical theme. Erik Aadahl and Craig Berkey were the lead sound designers.
Possible sequel
In an interview in June 2007 with the website Collider at a Battlestar Galactica event, writer and producer Ronald Moore stated that he was writing the sequel to the film I, Robot. In the two disc All-Access Collector's Edition of the film, Alex Proyas mentions that if he were to make a sequel to the film (which he says in the same interview, is highly unlikely), it would be set in outer space.
Similarities with the book
The final script retained some of Asimov's characters and ideas, though the ideas retained were heavily adapted and the plot of the film is not derived from Asimov's work.
The characters of Dr. Susan Calvin, Dr. Alfred Lanning, and Lawrence Robertson resemble their counterparts in the source material only marginally. For example, in Asimov's work Dr. Calvin is middle aged by the time robots even begin to be widely used and recommends the destruction of over sixty robots when it is discovered that one amongst them is not bound by the first law of robotics. In the film, Calvin is an attractive young woman with a strong faith in the laws of robotics who reacts emotionally when robots are shot or destroyed.
Sonny's attempt to hide in a sea of identical robots is loosely based on a similar scene in "Little Lost Robot". The robot-model designation "NS" was taken from the same story. Sonny's dreams and the final scene resemble similar images in "Robot Dreams", and V.I.K.I.'s motivation is an extrapolation of the Three Laws that Asimov explored in "The Evitable Conflict", "Robots and Empire", "Foundation and Earth" and ". . . That Thou Art Mindful of Him", as well as several other stories.
The premise of robots turning on their creators--originating in Karel ?apek's play R.U.R., and perpetuated in subsequent robot books and films--appears nowhere in Asimov's writings. In fact, Asimov stated explicitly, in interviews and in introductions to published collections of his robot stories, that he entered the genre to protest what he called the Frankenstein complex--the tendency in popular culture to portray robots as menacing. His story lines often involved roboticists and robot characters battling societal anti-robot prejudices.
References
External links
- I, Robot on IMDb
- I, Robot at AllMovie
- I, Robot at Rotten Tomatoes
- I, Robot at Box Office Mojo
- I, Robot at Metacritic
- The Bottom of Things by Michael Sampson, January 14, 2004
- E! online article on similarity to Bjork music video robot design
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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