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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A good movie gets a sublime transfer to Blu-Ray!, March 13, 2008
I own 56 Blu-Ray movies, and I have to say, this one is the way I wish all of them looked. Jaw-dropping detail, vivid colors, and no artifacts to be seen anywhere. A flawless transfer to HD, and a equally excellent audio track (I can only hear the 1.5 mbps DTS right now, but I can imagine how much better the lossless track will be once PS3 can decode DTS-MA.) Highly recommended, assuming you like the movie itself.
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17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and imaginative, but the same old Will Smith., October 28, 2004
I watched this one with my family over the weekend and, quite frankly, had a ball. Yeah, to some extent it's a movie with a message, but mainly it's just plain entertaining. If you try to read too much into it, you'll miss the opportunity for a good old-fashioned sci fi romp.
Fast forward to the year 2035. The monolithic company "U.S. Robotics" has put NS-4 domestic assistant robots into mass production, so much so that they are commonplace "members" of American society. Their artificial intelligence is designed to be as much like humans as possible, but is regulated by the "3 laws" programming that is hardwired into every robot. These laws are: 1. To protect human life above all; 2. To obey human commands except if it would violate law 1; and 3. To protect its own existence unless doing so would violate laws 1 or 2. The laws seem a foolproof way to ensure that the robots would never pose a threat to humanity. But all that changed when the man billed as the father of robotic technology and the 3 laws turns up dead in a very public, and very suspicous, manner, just as the new and improved NS-5 model is about to flood the market. The death is quickly written off by all concerned as a suicide. All except detective Dale Spooner, this is.
Being a good cop and a sharp detective, Spooner (played by Will Smith) in not content that the professor's death was a suicide, and begins investigating with the lead suspect, an NS-5 robot named "Sonny". Sonny's intelligence is so advanced, and his "emotions" so well simulated, that he appears to have something resembling a human soul. Spooner believes that Sonny killed the professor, and sets out to prove it. His (over)zealous approach to the task, coupled with his deep distrust of robots and their manufacturer, quickly lands him in hot water with some powerful people. Some difficult and destructive encounters with the metallic menaces leave him looking like an obsessive paranoiac, and ultimately result in his suspension from the police force.
Spooner continues his chase nonetheless, following a series of clues left by the dead professor, as step by step the mystery begins the unwind. All along the way are some great action sequences, plot twists and one-liners. However, except for Will Smith's character (which is the same as it has been in every film he has done since "Men in Black"), nothing about the story is predictable. When the final shoe drops, most viewers will be pleasantly surprised by the unexpected ending.
All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. It was a wild ride with lots of great sci fi treats and effects. The only downsides were the lack of character development on any signficant level -- this is a purely plot-driven movie -- and the fact that Will Smith essentially played himself, much as he always does. Still, it's worth seeing. I certainly don't regret the investment of two hours.
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20 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Perhaps this is my purpose", May 14, 2005
My first reaction as this film began was "Wait! This isn't Asimov." The Asimov I grew up reading was a weaver of ideas, more mind candy than adventure story. But here I found myself in Will Smith's bedroom, and then suddenly catapulted into a wild chase after a purse grabbing robot. A far cry from the delicacy used by Asimov. It took a while for the shock to wear off but eventually the conflict between Smith's gritty performance as Del Spooner and his original inspiration in the reminiscences of Dr. Susan Calvin (played by Bridget Moynahan) wears off and the view settles into a film that is inspired by Asimov, but does not imitate him.
The sooner that happens, the better, because this is an exceptional film in its own right, even if it does proceed with the speed of a video game. Smith creates a wisecracking character with a deep mistrust of robots. He is called in to to investigate what appears to be an impossible killing - robots can't kill humans, it's the first law of robotics. But Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) lies dead and the only suspect is 'Sonny' a Series 5 robot with some surprising circuitry (played by Alan Tudyk).
The death is declared a suicide, but Spooner refuses to give in. suddenly the automated world turns on the detective, whose unlikely ally is Dr. Calvin, a robopsychologist responsible for the psyches of masses of robots about to be distributed around the planet. One hair-raising escape after another propels the story along until viewers find themselves at a surprisingly reflective conclusion. Not exactly classical Asimov, but a great story nonetheless.
Will does a good job as Spooner, but he is upstaged by Moynihan's performance. And both are blown away by Tudyk and the animators performance as Sonny. As you watch Sonny develop from being slightly more simpatico than the scenery into a full-blown personality there are countless moments of surprise. Moynihan and Smith do their best, but from the moment Sonny turns to Spooner and says "Thank you... you said someone not something." The film belongs to the robots.
Excellent animation and CGI create a world that is a retro version of the future - perhaps exactly what Asimov imagined rather than what we would now. The result is a compelling mix of the outré and the mundane that sticks in the mind just as Sonny's wink does.
This is not just an action film. Threaded through it are the same questions that Asimov raised about the nature of self and intelligence. Robots may never be human, but there are far more than furniture. And if their thought processes are alien, they are more than the sum of their programming. The result is one of the more carefully thought out science fiction films in recent times.
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