I, Robot

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

Herald rating * * * *

Will Smith is a very big movie star who sometimes acts and can be great at it. But sometimes he just gets to be Will Smith. I, Robot is one of those times.

Yes, he might be at the centre of this supposed thinking fan's sci-fi action movie inspired by Isaac Asimov's collection of stories of the same title. He might be playing a Chicago cop who has a dark secret in his past, on the case of a mind-bending murder of a scientist who pioneered the robot-assisted world of 2035.

But really, he's good ol' Will, the grinning goofball save-the-world guy of Men In Black and Independence Day. And this is the African-American star's very own Minority Report.

That force of Will can initially throw the tone off a little. It's like Smith is operating in his own comedy airlock while all around him is a movie that is trying to be a Bladerunner detective story given a Matrix-level of computer wizardry.

And digital magic it is, too. The main robots of the piece, the NS-5s, resemble a cross between an iMac and those resuscitation dummies. But once they get going, they are up there with seeing the T-1000 in Terminator 2 turn himself into mercury for the first time.

In the film's action centrepiece, a couple of truckloads of them attack Smith in his very fast, very slick futuristic sportscar. It's a dazzler, even if you wonder how he fits his basketballer's frame into the coupe in the first place.

Eventually, the movie Smith seems to think he's in and the serious film that Proyas seemed to have in mind - after all, the Aussie director undoubtedly got the job on the strength of his proto-Matrix, Dark City - do meet in the middle.

You can see Smith fighting his own natural lovable smartass programming throughout. But even if his robo-phobic Detective Del Spooner is no great character study, he makes a fun guy to follow about, driving fast and shooting stuff.

Spooner is investigating the death of Dr Alfred Lanning (Cromwell), the genius behind the development of the positronic brain and everything else to do with robot servants that has made the world a nicer place.

The good doctor appears to have taken a dive out the window of his laboratory, high in the tower of mega-corporation US Robotics.

The suspects soon include Sonny, a NS-5 with a few too many ideas of his own, and the firm's steely boss Lawrence Robertson, who is about to unleash the NS-5 upgrade on a grateful world.

Spooner enlists the company's robo-shrink, Dr Susan Calvin (a perma-pouting Moynahan), to help him sift the android science from the evidence. Her role is also to frequently espouse Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (deep breath now) ...

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

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

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

Of course, rules are made to be broken or have their loopholes found - especially by things with so much software where their hearts should be.

Soon Spooner's technofear is resembling foresight and while the film's own software (especially the dialogue) may be inferior to its abundant visual hardware, it remains taut and exciting throughout, even if it ditches all pretensions of being a cerebral action flick in its final reels.

Though, in getting there it does enough with its robotics - as a threat to mankind, now a mildly dated sci-fi theme - to freshen the ideas and make them intrigue us in the same way they did when we were teenagers reading Asimov because it felt like a very deep thing to do.

Seeing the Fresh Prince kicking robo-butt isn't really much of a mental stretch.

But, thankfully, it manages to be an entertaining balance of Will-power and an upgrade on Asimov's original vision.

Cast: Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, James Cromwell

Director: Alex Proyas

Rating: not confirmed

Running Time: 115 mins

Screening: Village, Hoyts, Berkeley cinemas from Thursday