A rose (movie) by any other name (NOT I, Robot) would smell as sweet (not piss me off and keep me from enjoying the movie).

Let me get this out of the way.

First, "I, Robot" the movie was a good movie. Not great, but certainly not a bad movie. I thought the special effects were decent (a little overbearing and obvious at points, but definitely up to Hollywood standards), the plot flow was solid, and there were even a few one-liners that made me smile. Music was appropriate and acting was even semi-convincing.

Second, I am a total dork and a huge fan of the legendary Science Fiction Grandmaster Sir Isaac Asimov, own and have read dozens of his 400 plus works, including the famous Foundation Trillogy (which won the Nebula, a sci-fi/fantasy award, instead of Lord of the Rings). I, Robot (the book) is my favorite work of his, and most likely my favorite book, ever (the only close contender is The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe).

With that in mind, I, Robot the movie was said to be "inspired" by the work(s?) of Asimov. *spoiler alert*

I, Robot was a series of short stories about Dr. Calvin solving mysteries involving robots and Asimov's Three Laws.

And that's where I have a problem with it. If I'd seen this movie with the title of "Futuristic Robots" or "Robots Run Amok!," I'd have no problems. I'd probably even say it was a borderline great movie. Alas, they had to call it "I, Robot" and tie it in with the late Asimov, whose genius and work places him with most prolific writers of human history. He helped define modern science fiction as we know it, and his most famous literary contribution would probably be Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, which are as follows:

Law 1: A robot may not cause a human harm, or through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Law 2: A robot must obey all orders given to it by humans unless this conflicts with the first law.

Law 3: A robot must protect its own existance, unless this conflicts with the first or second law.

In every story Asimov wrote dealing with robots, his always were hard wired with these laws. No robot could ever possibly break them. It was physically impossible. Asimov, upon hearing the first mention of the newly disscovered "positron" in 1933, coined the term "positronic" and so his robots were born with a scientifically advanced and very science-fiction sounding "positronic brain" wereby all sorts of technology were presented, and of course were wired to not be able to harm humans. Credit for the laws in the movie was given (NOT to Asimov, but) to the character of Dr. Alfred Lanning, who was an arrogant, obstacle/foil for Calvin in I, Robot (played by James Cromwell).

Oddly enough, in the early and middle part of the 1900s, when strong female characters in novels, especially the boys-only club of science fiction, were nonexistant, Asimov chose his protagonist carefully. Dr. Suzie Calvin, a diminuitive, grey haired woman in her late 70s was a robot doctor, or (another Asimov minted term) "robopsychologist" who was repeatedly dragged from retirement to solve one last robot mystery (who is nothing like Bridget Moynahan). Dr. Calvin was a tough, sarcastic, single woman focused on her job. She was the best in the business, and cared little for humans, men in particular. Her only goal was to fix broken robots (NOT to fall in love with Will Smith). She died by the end of the book, having starred in and narrated most of the stories.

Other stories involving robots by Asimov were a series of novels (Caves of Steel) about a simple cop, Lije Bailey, who was paired with the (sounds like a sitcom here) unlikely partner, R. Daneel Olivaw, who was, of course, a robot. These two literary characters seemed to be fused together to create smooth talking Dectective Del Spooner (played by none other than Will Smith). The part cop/part robot stays true to Lije's hatred and psychological fear of robots, but (of course, this is a textbook blockbuster) converts to his true ways by the end.

Speaking of the end, Asimov's stories almost never ended in a cataclysmic hostile takeover of the world by evil robots. Though certainly a simple extrapolation of time and logic, the ending presented by the movie was a Hollywood drama that simply wasn't present in the book. In the book, at most, a remote space outpost was in danger, or a small group of scientists. Speaking of Hollywood stretches...no action took place in Asimov's novels. The genius of his work (and what I enjoy reading so much) is the logic and thinking of Calvin and Bailey. The human scientists and thinkers were the heroes, and there was never a scene where two large semis unleashed dozens of crazed, Gollum/Spiderman hybrid looking robots upon Lije (Smith), in his Audi driving 200 miles per hour.

Hollywood also did a good job of making the outdated (and thus being replaced) robots have anthropromorphized features. Enlongated features and oval eyes gave them a "sad" face, and they are repeatedly abused and tortured and have a broken, subservient gait and posture. On a subtle, emotional level, we are supposed to feel sorry for the machines Smith's character repeately emphasizes are "just machines."

I will give the movie a few subtle references.

1. The first was a small reference to Asimov's novel, The Positronic Man (which Hollywood also remade and ruined in 1999's Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams). Smith expresses his robophobia and chastizes U.S. Robotics CEO Lawrence Robertson (played by a dull Bruce Greenwood) about a potential ad where a US Robot outperforms his master in carpentry and the slogan is "Where we shit on the little guy" (something like that). In the original novel, the robot of note was able to create his own works of woodwork, and thus began the transition from robot to almost human.

2. The megacorporation that owns the world's robots in both the book and the movie was U.S. Robots, although the book states the full name as U.S. Robot and Mechanical Men, Inc.

3. Dr. Suzie Calvin's favorite and most used method for catching malfunctioning or defective robots was to isolate them and interview them with a series of repetitive logical questions, designed to isolate the defective robot through deduction and analysis (a lengthy process suggested by Moynahan). Despite her opponents (large old white men with vast military, political, and economic power), she always argued and won her way of running the show and resolved the conflict with a sarcastic "I told you so" at the end. Interviews and logic. NOT Will Smith pointing a gun at what he stresses are "emotionless" robots and looking for the one that flinches.

4. As the new line of robots are rolled out by Megacorp U.S. Robots (possibly an Asimovian allegory of the perils of big businesses), the new robot bends down to hug the small child of a stereotypical family, as if to quell any fears about the monsterous machines Smith proclaims. This move enraged the overprotective mother in Asimov's first robot story, "Robbie."

and finally 5. In the story "Little Lost Robot," the NS line of robots were introduced. Asimov had a habit of "naming" his robots based on the letters and numbers that make up the model. The NS-0s became "Nestors," which was the name of the NS-5 models of robots in the movie.

The root of it all is the fact that the key robot in the movie (affectionately named "Sonny," voiced by Alan Tudyk) was made with two positronic brains (NOT an Asimov story) and actually committed the murder (in the end) of Dr. Lanning. This simply would never happen in an Asimov story. Two robots came close. One was paralyzed by the logic of saving one human (in this case, a bad guy) and saving thousands of humans (the bad guy's targets). The robot went berserk and hid in a factory of thousands of similar models. Another was a mysterious politician accused of being a robot...until he punches a rival candidate in the face. Not a robot allowable behavior, harming a human. Dr. Calvin casually admits at the end of the story that the opponent could've been a robot also (human looking robots were NOT a regular part of Asimov's stories, either).

Update
*An interesting review in The New York Times about the "smartest dumb movie" this critic has seen in a while.

*A bit of an extremeist review, but funny nonetheless.

So, in the end, I repeat. A perfectly good movie, but my problem is with the connections to the masterpiece of science fiction that will forever remain the true I, Robot. I think I'll go re-read it, for the sixth or seventh time.

Filmography links and data courtesy of
The Internet Movie
Database.