Rating (out of 5): 

Visually thrilling Australian director Alex Proyas joins the revered ranks of Sam Raimi (Spider Man 2) and Richard Linklater (School of Rock) as the great saving graces of American multiplex movie making in 2004. 

Proyas, Australia’s wonder-child of big budget sci-fi productions (The Crow, Dark City), succeeds spectacularly in bringing to life I, Robot -- “suggested” by a collection of short stories written by Isaac Asimov, the film’s hypothesis earnestly delves into the idea of future technology going awry.   

Framed inside of a sharp, vividly detailed mise en scene, Aussie cinematographer Simon Duggan (The Interview, Risk) conjures a polished futuristic world.  But it’s Proyas’ pace that really cements the experience: I, Robot moves briskly but in careful measured portions, and there’s not one dead minute in it.  The film’s marketing tag-line (“one man saw it coming”) only comes into fruition as it reels towards a final act, paving the way for a spectacular man-against-machine finale climaxing a story as rousing as anything science fiction cinema from the US has produced in the laws few years. 

Robots are everywhere in Chicago 2035: they mostly occupy jobs that used to belong to the lower class.  Del Spooner (Will Smith) is, for his own private reasons, cynical of the robot phenomenon and regularly suspects the modern C-3PO’s of foul play.  But no robot has ever been capable of committing a crime – you see, they are all programmed with three unbreakable rules written into their electronic brains:

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 would conflict with the First Law, and 

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

So when a robot named Sonny (voice of Alan Tudyk) is implicated in the “suicide” death of robot creator Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) Spooner is the only cop on the planets who believes the rules may have somehow been bypassed.   

Following a trail of breadcrumb clues the casual stride of the former-Fresh Prince of Bel Air gradually unearths high-level plans for a swift change in global power structure: it appears that a revolution may be on the cards but it won’t be for human kind.   

And so the red herrings fall into place and the story builds its functions: the trail leads to a mystery militant confrontation, a gentle probing of Sonny’s consciousness launches supplementary discussions about the soul and what it means to be human, and Spooner’s personal cynicism becomes an anthem for the fighting qualities of mankind.  

The screenplay for I, Robot, written by Jeff Vintar (Final Fantasy) and Akiva Goldsman (A Beautiful Mind), is structured predominantly a cop film.  A number of police movie conventions contribute to the story’s development: the script donates red herrings to unravel its cause-and-effect hierarchy of events (Chinatown); the detective’s personal history hinders the credibility of his investigations (Bad Eggs); and the villain entity is a well-trusted network in bed with city politics and police (Beverly Hills Cop). 

The bland marketing campaign promoting I, Robot is quick to demonstrate the film’s appeal as an action-orientated “event” movie, but says nothing of Proyas’s pace and patience.  The sci-fi foundation of Asimov’s commentary neatly compliments the film’s detective-story layout, reminiscent of scruffy cult hero Rick Deckard’s literal and metaphorical searches in Blade Runner (1982).   

It is encouraging for the blockbuster movie culture that the association between Proyas’s new film and Ridley Scott’s masterful take on Philip K. Dick is a just comparison: I, Robot is the first film of the new millennium to approach Blade Runner’s milestone methods of marrying tricky sci fi concepts with succinct plotting, legitimate social commentary and technical excellence.  Proyas isn’t up to the task of attempting Ridley Scott’s best achievement – creating a big-budget epic with touches of European values – but still creates an experience that encourages multiplex audiences to bring their brains inside the cinema with them.    

Will Smith’s acting is the only one of the film’s drawcards that will hinder its potential to attain cult status; Smith rehashes a familiar persona which, although an entertaining and irrefutably likeable presence, isn’t the sort you remember in ten years time.  But the film itself, aesthetically and thematically a smooth production, is completely engaging.   

Proyas’ quickness to promote product placement (Converse and Fed-Ex logos are included in the first couple of minutes of running time) is initially disconcerting but, once the story clicks into gear, only viewers without a pulse won’t feel a tweak or two of excitement.