| 1.
Robot done Will wrong. |
| 2.
Robot Supremo (Will's buddy) apparently slain by robot |
| 3.
Will's tenacity leads him to be No. 1 hero* |
*in
which he overcomes any trace of personal darkness and emerges
blinking having got over his dramatic arc.
Can
someone inform Hollywood? People don't really have arcs.
Only movie characters. Oh, so I guess that's OK then. There's
not much more to summer 'event' movies is there?
At
the heart of the picture is Alan Tudyk, the actor who brought
'Sonny' to life on set the way Andy Serkis served Gollum
so well. His CG doppleganger's performance is graceful and
nuanced (even if its design is shamefully close to those
in the Björk video) which means that the animators
have done an extraordinary job interpreting what must have
been a fine performance from Firefly’s
favourite (and only) pilot. Tudyk's voice has been electronically
treated but the heart of the performance is intact. To praise
an oft damned element of modern films in general (oft damned
by myself, I might add), the CG characters and FX are superb
and I, Robot is one of the very few films
where the FX have integrated so well, you just accept them
as if they were shot 'live'. That makes a big difference
- a very big difference - in my appreciation.
Will
Smith is a star who wants to be a real actor but who's offered
only star parts. When you're six two, pugnaciously handsome
and have the physicality of an immensely confident cat,
there are few non-star roles to play. Detective Spooner
fits Smith very well. The character takes him out of his
audience-favourite star persona just long enough for the
rougher edges to register. It's such a shame that those
rough edges are smoothed down so quickly by the good guy
robot (it's that arc again). When Spooner shoots a robot
in an attempt to reveal his quarry amongst hundreds of identical
figures, it made me think of (strangely) a matter-of-fact
execution in Schindler’s List, which is perhaps giving
it more weight than it deserved.
 |
But
it affected me. Smith has rarely had to do something so
dark in his entire career. If we forgive the travesty that
is The Fresh Prince (how that show makes
my toenails grow in), Smith's career has been generally
trading off his more adult, confident guy in the street
(just not a Bel Air street please). He's likeable without
being cloying and all he needs now to cement a path out
of $15 million star roles is to be favoured in an Oliver
Stone movie. Michael Mann served him well (and vice versa
in Ali) but Smith still occupies a very
hallowed place in the land of Hollywood demography.
He’s
black - duh, (so apparently appeals to a black audience)
but he’s also mega-white friendly (I mean, he rapped
on TV without cussing). Isn't that like being a sober alcoholic?
He was also the Smith to Tommy's Jones in one of the biggest
movie hits of all time, Men in Black. Will
Smith is the demographer's dream and all power to him. If
ideas can voyage from one brain to another and the conduit
is Will Smith, I'll thank the man personally. For the record,
he was also Executive Producer. Once stars adopt that largely
meaningless title (except when it comes to getting one's
own way) we know they are attempting to do something they
care about. I, Robot looms large on the
screen but it also convinces that someone loves it.
The
action based climax (the second half is nearly all action)
contains vertiginous whip pans that actually make you wince
as the robots converge on our heroes. Where is it written
that movie sets have to have a multi-storey drop as a sort
of default setting for… uh, sets? I knew (I really
knew as in box-office knew) that Will and female partner
would win out in the end so was surprised that I cared so
much.
I,
Robot hinges on the willing suspension of disbelief
that a white, blue-eyed character could possibly be regarded
as anything but the good guy. And that's just the robot.
Tudyk's 'Sonny' is not on screen for enough time to make
the philosophical questions resonate. He barely has time
for a "What am I?" and for a toaster with legs,
that's still quite an achievement (before he scurries up
the walls to freedom).
I,
Robot is good entertainment. If it passes on a
smidgeon of Asimov's ideas along the way then the world
is richer for it.
