Dir. Alex Proyas, 2004, USA, 115 mins Cast:
Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Alan Tudyk
With only four feature films to his credit, Egyptian-Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas has carved a considerable niche for himself as a visually inventive, genre-bending filmmaker. Despite his background being largely in music videos, Proyas has displayed a talent largely escaping other filmmakers of his ilk, the ability to conjure striking cinematic images and combine them with inventive concepts and strong, plot driven drama. His 1987 debut Spirits of the Air, Gremlins of the Clouds was a stunningly realised post apocalyptic fever dream. Part science fiction, part fantasy, it remains one of the best examples of how truly great Australian cinema can be.
In 1994, Proyas directed a dark, furious adaptation of James O'Barr's comic book phantom The Crow. The ill-fated production saw the tragic demise of its young star (and Proyas's close friend) Brandon Lee. To date, of the turbulent production and Lee's death, Proyas has said only this: "I never wanted to finish that movie, I didn't give a damn about it frankly, my friend had died and that's all I could see..I went back to Sydney and spent a month trying to stop having nightmares".
The self imposed filmmaking hiatus soon ended, giving birth to an utterly original and totally uncompromising science fiction masterpiece: Dark City. Its plot revolving around the manipulation of reality, combined stunning computer generated visuals (and leather clad, gravity defying ghouls), scarily pre-dating the much-vaunted (and much-copied) visual aesthetics of The Matrix by at least a year. A recent return to low budget filmmaking resulted in the flawed but endearing rock band comedy Garage Days. With the release of his latest directorial effort, Proyas returns to the genre that he does best.
A boyhood fan of the I, Robot collection of short stories, bringing Asimov's robot opus to the screen, was a long time obsession for the Antipodean director. The genesis of I, Robot as a film is best described by Proyas himself: "I was going to do I, Robot five years ago and we couldn't get the rights, it was tied up in all sorts of legalities and I read a script called Hardwire by a writer named Jeff Vinter that was highly influenced by the Asimov stories, and I thought this is at least the robot movie I have always wanted to do, the definitive robot movie. Then I think within six months of working on that the rights [to I, Robot] became available, and to cut a long story short we kind of absorbed the two projects together".
This statement goes a long way towards explaining one of the more obvious criticisms being levelled at the film. In the transference to the screen, the film has been crafted as a summer vehicle for Smith and is therefore littered with wisecracks and 'Willi-cisms'. Whilst these elements are not exactly Asimov, it's a universe undoubtedly inspired by him.
In USA 2035, Del Spooner (Smith) is a curmudgeonly techno-phobic cop living on a planet populated by servile robots that cater to our every need, domestic and professional. Like an iPod with legs, a robot is a status symbol, a fashion accessory and an aesthetic appliance to be desired. US Robotics builds the robots with an inbuilt code of ethics to protect us from them. The three laws of robotics state that one: a robot cannot harm a human being or through inaction allow a human to come to harm; two: a robot can defend itself from harm except where it violates the first law; three: a robot must obey the commands of any human except where it violates the first and second law.
This seemingly benign series of laws combine to create a ticking ethical time bomb when a pioneering robotics scientist is murdered at US Robotics, apparently at the hands of a robot named Sonny (Alan Tudyk) - a brand new design known as an NS-5. Spooner is assisted in his investigation by robotic psychologist Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) and shady US Robotics executive Lawrence Robertson (a vastly underused Bruce Greenwood). Spooner soon uncovers plots and conspiracies, posing a greater threat not just to humans, but to humanity in general.
Combining the high-brow concepts of Asimov with the low-brow stylings of Hollywood's slick factory product, Proyas once again stamps his heavy, conceptually rich vision onto the slick, pliable outer casing of a summer A-lister action vehicle. The film is an unabashed blockbuster and finds Smith at his charismatic best, initially investigating the film's murder mystery like TV's Columbo - all wise cracks and deliberate bad jokes. Bridget Moynahan's adroit psychologist holds her own in the face of Big Willie, but the genuine joy of the film is Alan Tudyk's skillfully humanised robot Sonny who, as a wholly digital creation, continues the impressive digital thespian trail blazed by The Lord Of The Ring's Gollum. Although Smith's winning style amuses, some lines are wincingly typical of this sort of fare ("You SO gotta die!"), but on the whole Jeff Vinter's screenplay is so strongly conceived and written, it powers along like a freight train and like it or not, can never be called dull. The serious sci-fi concepts, startling visual effects and flashes of dark brilliance, so much a trade-mark of Proyas, (on-the-whole) merge successfully with the demands of Smith's broadly aimed, big-budget action conventions and result in what is by far one of the smartest and slickest sci-fi actioners to hit cinema screens in a long while.
Jarrod Walker
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