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irobot - 7/16/04 - R - 113m
Will Smith - Del Spooner
Bridget Moynahan - Susan Calvin
Alan Tudyk - Sonny
Director: Alex Proyas
Screen story by: Jeff Vintar
Studio: 20th Century Fox
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JEF
I was so glad to have enjoyed this movie! I went in not expecting too much, and actually expecting it to be a flop like all the others in ’04. After all it was a summer blockbuster, and sci-fi, so how good could it be? Well, I loved this movie!
Storyline: Set in the Future (2035) Del Spooner (Will Smith) is a detective in Chicago. We see him as he wakes for his morning routine, and it becomes clear that he has a love for things of old - like a classic pair of 2004 Chuck Taylor high-tops, and a JVC CD player. As he leaves his apartment, we see the future, and that is… robots everywhere. It quickly becomes apparent that Spooner dislikes robots. Soon into the movie Dective Spooner is called in to investigate a crime, and the movie just takes off from there.
Perhaps I should start with what impressed me the most about the film. The effects were incredible, the storyline was fast paced, and easily understood without being spoon fed, the acting was good, the one-liner zingers by Will Smith were actually funny at times, and the action was non-stop without being tedious.
The effects were a huge part of what I enjoyed most about this film. There seemed to be a real attention to detail. Rather than show us only a fancy futuristic car, they seemed to focus on what the entire city of Chicago would be like in the year 2035. Perhaps my favorite element was the police caution tape set up around the perimeter of the crime scene, it was a laser type animated beam set to revolve around four posts. Such a simple little element that could have easily been overlooked, but yet they took the time to digitally animated this mundane item. The vehicles were amazing with their round wheels, (which I’ve often pondered about myself). The robots were incredible. They were well animated, and moved very lifelike.
The acting was good. I won’t say it was great, but Will Smith did a really good job carrying the weight of this film. His friend/co-partner Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan) did a good job too. She was the USR “shrink” and had a great onscreen chemistry with Smith.
The other item that I really liked besides all the eye candy was the storyline. I luckily had never read any of Isaac Asimov’s work that inspired this movie. Sure I know who he is, but I’ve never read his work. I think this was a good thing because the storyline was new and I wasn’t trying to compare it to the book. The basic plot of the movie (robots take over the world) has been done a hundred times, but this had a well thought out screenplay, with elements of just about everything (action, romance, suspense, etc…). There were some underlying philosophical elements too that made for some nice thinking during the movie while you were enjoying the eye candy.
All in all, this reminded me of the first Matrix movie. It’s very difficult to make a quality science fiction movie now-a-days, but this movie just about had it all, and in that perfect mix. If you enjoy sci-fi I would highly recommend this movie. If you want to see a good Hollywood blockbuster (which I usually dislike) this is what a Hollywood blockbuster SHOULD be like. I look forward to seeing this movie again (maybe in the theatre), so that I can watch it with an eye for what all is going on in the background scenes, that I’m sure I missed in the first viewing.
Go see this movie!
Jef
