Watching Mr. Roboto

Just got back from watching "I, Robot" starring Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan and Alan Tudyk. Technically speaking, the movie was rather inspired and not adapted from the Isaac Asimov story as misinterpreted by the marketing people of the film, critics and fans.

Seems to me that any movie that supposedly "adapted" from a pre-existing book or other literary work is basically pre-written which may contain common denominator elements to the said work which is "adapted" and promptly go about obtaining the permission and rights to use it with some slight script write changes. The movie basically relies on the kind of brand name familiarity on account of the reputation preceded from its literary namesake. Its rather a common trend to note with most movies that touts to be an adaptation of story by >(any famous author's name)<, especially in this case with fantasy and sci-fi films.

Anyways onto the review of the movie. It has a similiar feel like Minority Report starring Tom Cruise in terms of presentation. The usual slick sci-fi eyecandy to be expected with the usual round of CG addon.

The premise of the movie revolves around the infallibility of the 3 Laws of Robotics which are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Of course, these three laws known in Asimov's stories later adds an another law, the Zeroth Law, which is basically an extension of the 1st Law where it encompasses humanity as opposed to the individual human.

These laws are hardwired into the construction of the positronic brains these robots use. The infallibility of these laws makes them safe, yes? Not exactly as played out in the movie.

The movie proceeds with Will Smith's character, Detective Del Spooner, investigating a murder scene that possibly involves a robot, after he had brief paranoid episode involving a perceived purse-snatching robot. The murder victim in question happens to be the so-called father of robotics research for US Robotics. (Hmmmmm....first modems now they build robots for the world. ;) ) Detective Spooner gets teamed up with Dr. Susan Calvin, the murder victim's protege and fellow researcher for the corporation. They followed the trail of clues left by Dr. Lanning and later arrived to some startling revelation. Part of it lies in the fact of Sonny's construction and not-yet discovered purpose. The final piece to the puzzle was arrived at with Det. Spooner's arrival at the storage site for the now outdated Ns-4 robots and a clever round of questioning with Dr. Lanning's interactive holographic message prior to his death. It appears that the ultimate conclusion from the 3 laws of robotics would lead to robots overtly protecting man from his own self-destructive path with all means necessary. A revolution, Dr. Lanning puts it to be. That brand of logic is also what prompted the Sentinels in X-Men comics to go overboard with theri primary directive as to protecting humanity from mutants. The movie follows on later with some scene reminiscent of a familiar battle scene down in Star Wars, Episode 1 involving Gungans and Trade Federation Battle Droids. The action near the last 15-20 minutes or so. Sonny, though a virtual actor or synthespian did a really good job in doing robot combat against his fellow NS-5's robots. Pretty slick fighting I'd say. All in all, its can rate as a good popcorn-munching movie on this note.

I'll see about watching it again with my Dad when time allows. *Styx song "Mr. Roboto" playing now from the doghouse.*