Isaac Asimov. Will Smith. Bastard Ghosts in the Machine. Shortest review ever. You’re welcome. Cheers!
Ok, I guess I might need to expand on this one a bit. Will Smith is like that short guy. No, not Robert DeNiro, that other one. Risky Business dude, Tom Cruise. They both have a knack for picking the sci-fi stories. Some are executed ok. Some, not so much. But here is Smith and the Three Laws of Robotics, and a tale of how that may play out. The quick synopsis, even though they are pretty short to begin with but should probably be repeated here for the sake of Orwell, Law 1. Robots can’t hurt humans directly or through inaction, 2. Obey humans except where that conflict with rule 1. And Law 3. Robots protect themselves unless conflicting with rules 2 and 1. Simple logic. Let’s move on. Effective if not deviated from. This movie may contain...deviations.
Detective Spooner (Will Smith) has a weird prejudice against robots. Do we find out what that might be? Yes. Because if we didn’t, it would just be stupid. Or would it? Chicago 2035, with a huge roll-out of next-gen robots imminent. But on the eve of this, main Grandpa Robot Scientist dude apparently commits suicide, and Spooner is called in to check it out. Shit don’t smell right. Grandpa’s left the ole Hansel and Gretel breadcrumb clues to figure out. Spooner’s got insider knowledge on ole Grandpa Robotitude who “jumped to his death,” so he’s pretty much the only person left to suss it out while everyone else welcomes the new robot horde with open arms.
“And of course, 3-laws safe” is a selling point for the robots. If they need to tell you that so, yeah, no, it ain’t true. Wouldn’t be much of a movie if that weren’t the case. But despite turning Asimov’s original not-really-action stories into an action flick, director Proyas actually does a good job with laying out the fundamental concerns and potential downfalls. Because, you know, robots, they perfect, right? Riiiight. Alan “Space Cowboy Pilot” Tudyk provides the best HAL 9000 voice while not being HAL 9000. And Smith does a decent job injecting some dark humor while displaying blatant robot-raysistismses, no allegory here, none at all, though Elon Musk probably would not agree. Or Scott Adams, who wants a robot in every home. Not everybody does. This movie is a reason why, 3 laws or not.
