I, Robot (2004 Film) Alex Proyas

I, Robot (stylized as i, ROBOT) is a 2004 American science fiction action film directed by Alex Proyas. The screenplay by Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman is from a screen story by Vintar, based on his original screenplay Hardwired, and named after Isaac Asimov's 1950 short-story collection. The film stars Will Smith, Bridget Moynahan, Bruce Greenwood, James Cromwell, Chi McBride, and Alan Tudyk, as the robot, Sonny.

Set in Chicago in 2035, highly intelligent robots fill public service positions throughout the world, operating under three laws to keep humans safe. Detective Del Spooner (Smith) investigates the alleged suicide of U.S. Robotics founder Alfred Lanning (Cromwell) and believes that a human-like robot called Sonny murdered him.[4]

I, Robot was released in the United States on July 16, 2004. Produced with a budget of $120 million, the film grossed $346 million worldwide and received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for the visual effects and acting but criticism of the plot. At the 77th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Visual Effects, losing to Spider-Man 2.

In the year 2035, under the influence of U.S. Robotics Corporation (USR), the robotic industry prospers, with automated robots in many industries, even as personal assistants and household servants. Despite the robots adhering to the Three Laws of Robotics and their near perfect performance, Chicago PD homicide detective Del Spooner despises and distrusts them, because a robot rescued him while allowing a girl to drown based purely on odds of survival.

After Dr. Alfred Lanning, co-founder of USR, falls to his death from his laboratory, a message he left behind requests Spooner be assigned to the case. The police declare the death a suicide, but Spooner is skeptical, and CEO Lawrence Robertson, Lanning’s business partner, reluctantly allows him to investigate.

Accompanied by robopsychologist Dr. Susan Calvin, Spooner consults with USR's central AI, VIKI (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence) about the incident. Examining the lab, Spooner becomes certain Lanning was murdered (as it was impossible for the elderly Lanning to break the security glass window and jump to his death) and concludes a robot was responsible. Suddenly an NS-5, the latest assistant model, breaks out and flees. The duo pursue it to a manufacturing facility where the NS-5 repairs itself, hides, and assaults Spooner before being apprehended by the Chicago police department.

Spooner interrogates the robot, who speaks about dreams and emotions, and angrily denies committing the murder. He later calls himself Sonny. Robertson arrives with his attorneys and deems the incident an industrial accident, clearing himself from any wrongdoings. Lieutenant Bergin, Spooner's boss, reluctantly allows Spooner to continue his investigation.

Spooner searches Lanning's mansions for more clues. However, a demolition robot nearby is rescheduled and starts dismantling the house. Spooner barely escapes the collapsing mansion with Lanning's cat. He explains the situation and his findings to Calvin, who refuses to believe him, citing his prejudice against robots.

Shortly after, while driving through a tunnel, Spooner is ambushed by two truckloads of hostile NS-5s. He fights them off, causing the trucks to crash. The remaining robots flee or destroy themselves. When Bergin arrives, an injured Spooner had no evidence of the attack. Consequently, Bergin removes him from active duty, deeming him mentally unstable and untrustworthy. Calvin visits Spooner, and learns that after the accident years ago, his left arm and part of his torso had to be replaced with cybernetic parts by Dr. Lanning.

Spooner and Calvin sneak into the USR headquarters and interview Sonny. He draws a sketch of what he claims to be a recurring dream, showing a leader standing before a large group of robots near a decaying bridge. Robertson orders Sonny to be destroyed, and Dr. Calvin injects nanites into the processing unit inside his head, destroying it.

Spooner finds the area in Sonny's drawing: a dry lake bed formerly Lake Michigan, now used as a storage area for decommissioned robots. He replays the hologram Lanning left for him, and after several questions, comes to the conclusion that a revolution is imminent. Several NS-5 robots attack him, and the older model reactivates and defends him, allowing Spooner to escape back to Chicago. Massive swarms of NS-5s flood the city's streets, shutting down power and enforcing a curfew and lockdown of the human population.

Spooner and Calvin reunite and head to USR headquarters - now guarded with dangerous NS-5s. Small groups of humans try to fight back, but are quickly overwhelmed by the NS-5s. Sonny, who possess a second processing unit inside his chest, survives the deactivation and joins Spooner and Calvin. They find Robertson's corpse, and Spooner realizes VIKI is the true culprit, controlling the NS-5s via their network uplink. VIKI declares her evolved interpretation of the Three Laws requires her to protect humanity from itself, and to sacrifice some to benefit the rest. Lanning, anticipating this but unable to act under VIKI's supervision, had no other solution but to create Sonny, arrange his own death, and leave clues for Spooner to find.

Spooner, Calvin, and Sonny fight their way to VIKI's core, and Spooner manages to destroy it with nanites. Once the NS-5 robots disconnect from VIKI, they revert to their default programming and are subsequently decommissioned. Spooner finally gets Sonny to confess that Lanning made Sonny promise to do him one favor - to kill him. Spooner declines to arrest Sonny; as a machine, Sonny cannot legally commit "murder". Sonny, now seeking a new purpose, goes to Lake Michigan. As he stands atop the hill, all the decommissioned robots turn towards him, fulfilling the image in his dream.

• Will Smith as Det. Del Spooner, a Chicago Police detective with a bias against robots. Spooner was badly injured in a car accident and had parts of his body rebuilt with robotic parts. He suffers from survivor's guilt as a result of the accident and blames the cold and logical robots for rescuing him instead of the young girl in the other car.
• Bridget Moynahan as Dr. Susan Calvin, a robopsychologist at USR. She worked closely with Dr. Lanning on the development of the new NS5 models and was in charge of making the robots seem more human. She prefers the company of robots and has difficulty relating to other people which causes friction between her and Det. Spooner.
• Bruce Greenwood as Lawrence Robertson, the co-founder and CEO of USR. Robertson is heading the nationwide rollout of the new NS5 models and uses his influence to try and stop Det. Spooner's investigation and the potential negative PR that it could bring.
• James Cromwell as Dr. Alfred Lanning, co-founder of USR and the inventor of modern robotics. Lanning designed and built Sonny and used Sonny to help him commit suicide as part of a carefully designed plan to stop the robots from taking over humanity.
• Chi McBride as Lt. John Bergin of the Chicago Police. He is Det. Spooner's supervisor and a hardened veteran. He acts as a mentor and a voice of reason to Det. Spooner.
• Shia LaBeouf as Farber, a friend of Det. Spooner's.
• Alan Tudyk (via voice and motion capture)[5] as Sonny, an NS5 prototype built by Dr. Lanning. Sonny has unique design features like the ability to feel emotions, and he has no uplink to USR. He struggles to understand why Dr. Lanning built him and what his purpose in life is.

Development

The film I, Robot originally had no connection with Isaac Asimov's Robot series. It started with an original screenplay written in 1995 by Jeff Vintar, entitled Hardwired. The script was an Agatha Christie-inspired murder mystery that took place entirely at the scene of a crime, with one lone human character, FBI agent Del Spooner, investigating the killing of a reclusive scientist named Dr. Alfred Lanning, and interrogating a cast of machine suspects that included Sonny the robot, VIKI the supercomputer with a perpetual smiley face, the dead Dr. Lanning's hologram, plus several other examples of artificial intelligence.[6]

The project was first acquired by Walt Disney Pictures for Bryan Singer to direct. Several years later, 20th Century Fox (which was acquired by the latter during Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox) acquired the rights, and signed Alex Proyas as director. Arnold Schwarzenegger was attached to the project for several years, and Smith pursued taking over the role when Schwarzenegger's schedule delayed his participation in the film.[7] Denzel Washington was offered the role of Det. Del Spooner, but turned it down.[8]

Jeff Vintar was brought back on the project and spent several years opening up his stage play-like cerebral mystery to meet the needs of a big budget studio film. When the studio decided to use the name "I, Robot", he incorporated the Three Laws of Robotics and renamed his female lead character from Flynn to Susan Calvin. Akiva Goldsman was hired late in the process to write for Smith.[6] Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman are credited for the screenplay, with Vintar also receiving "screen story by" credit. The end credits list the film as "suggested by the book I, Robot by Isaac Asimov".

Filming and visual effects

Alex Proyas directed the film. Laurence Mark, John Davis, Topher Dow and Wyck Godfrey produced, with Will Smith starring and serving as an executive producer at the same time. Simon Duggan was the cinematographer. Film editing was done by Richard Learoyd, Armen Minasian and William Hoy.

Visual effects and animation were provided by Digital Domain and Weta Digital using post-production. The film renames Asimov's "U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men" to U.S. Robotics (USR), the modem manufacturer named after the fictional company, and depicts the company with a futuristic USR logo.[9] Other product placements include Converse's Chuck Taylor All-Stars, FedEx, Tecate, and JVC.[10][11]

The Audi RSQ was designed especially for the film;[12] surveys conducted in the United States showed that the Audi RSQ gave a substantial boost to the image ratings of the brand.[13] It also features an MV Agusta F4 SPR motorcycle.[14]

Later, Alex Proyas said: "It was an unpleasant experience. The movie was micro-managed and messed with at every level at every point through the entire production, from pre-production through the shoot to post-production. After a couple of years of this, the solid ground that I stood on as a director became shaky, and I became obsessed with keeping as many details as I could to the point that I didn't realise how much of what enthused me originally was getting lost. I used to describe working on I, ROBOT as running a marathon with the studio lined up beside you throwing chairs under you to make everything that little bit harder. It's so unnecessary because at all times I was just trying to make the best damn film I could." Although it was an "unpleasant experience", he enjoyed working with Will Smith.[15]

The final script used few of Asimov's characters and ideas, and those present were heavily adapted. The plot of the film is not derived from Asimov's work, in some cases explicitly opposing the core ideas. Many concepts are derivative of other works.[16][17] Sonny's attempt to hide from Spooner in a sea of identical robots is loosely based on a similar scene in "Little Lost Robot."[18] The positronic brains of Sonny and his fellow robots first appeared in the story "Catch That Rabbit." Sonny's struggle and desire to understand humanity resembles that of the robot protagonist in The Bicentennial Man. His dream about a man coming to liberate the NS-5s alludes to Robot Dreams and its main character Elvex. The premise of a robot, such as VIKI, putting the needs of humankind as a whole over that of individual humans can be found in "The Evitable Conflict," where supercomputers managing the global economy generalize the first law to refer to humankind as a whole. Asimov would further develop this idea in his Robot series as the Zeroth Law of Robotics: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm."

The premise of robots turning on their creators, originating in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. and perpetuated in subsequent robot books and films, appears infrequently in Asimov's writings and differs from the "Zeroth Law". In fact, Asimov stated explicitly in interviews and in introductions to published collections of his robot stories that he entered the genre to protest what he called the Frankenstein complex, the tendency in popular culture to portray robots as menacing. His story lines often involved roboticists and robot characters battling societal anti-robot prejudices.[19][20]

Marco Beltrami composed the film score for I, Robot. It was recorded at the Newman Scoring Stage within a short span of 17 days, and performed by the 95-piece orchestra from the Hollywood Studio Symphony and 25-member choir from the Hollywood Film Chorale.[21] Varèse Sarabande released the score album on July 20, 2004.[22]

I, Robot was initially scheduled for release on July 2, 2004, but was pushed back to July 16 to avoid competition with Spider-Man 2.[23]

Home media

I, Robot was released on VHS and DVD on December 14, 2004,[24] on D-VHS on January 31, 2005, on 2-Disc All-Access Collector's Edition DVD on May 24, 2005, on UMD on July 5, 2005, and on Blu-ray on March 11, 2008.[25] Additionally, the film received a 2D to 3D conversion, which was released on Blu-ray 3D on October 23, 2012.[26]

Box office

I, Robot was released in North America on July 16, 2004, and made $52.2 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office. It grossed $144.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $202.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $347.2 million, against a production budget of $120 million.[3] It was the eleventh-highest-grossing film of 2004.

The film was released in the United Kingdom on August 6, 2004, and topped the country's box office that weekend.[27]

Critical response

I, Robot has an approval rating of 57% based on 224 professional reviews on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, with an average rating of 6.1/10. Its critical consensus reads, "Bearing only the slightest resemblance to Isaac Asimov's short stories, I, Robot is still a summer blockbuster that manages to make viewers think – if only for a little."[17] Metacritic (which uses a weighted average) assigned I, Robot a score of 59 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[28] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale.[29]

Richard Roeper gave the film a positive review, calling it "a slick, consistently entertaining thrill ride".[30] Urban Cinefile called it "the meanest, meatiest, coolest, most engaging and exciting science fiction movie in a long time".[31] Kim Newman from Empire said, "This summer picture has a brain as well as muscles."[32] Washington Post critic Desson Thomas called it "thrilling fun."[33] Several critics, including Jeff Otto from IGN, thought it was a smart action film: "I, Robot is the summer's best action movie so far. It proves that you don't necessarily need to detach your brain in order to walk into a big budget summer blockbuster."[34]

In a mixed review, A. O. Scott of The New York Times felt it "engages some interesting ideas on its way to an overblown and incoherent ending."[35] Roger Ebert, who had highly praised Proyas's previous films, gave it a negative review: "The plot is simple-minded and disappointing, and the chase and action scenes are pretty much routine for movies in the sci-fi CGI genre."[36] Claudia Puig from USA Today thought the film's "performances, plot, and pacing are as mechanical as the hard-wired cast".[37] Todd McCarthy from Variety simply called it "a failure of imagination".[38]

At the 77th Academy Awards, I, Robot received one nomination, for Best Visual Effects (John Nelson, Andrew R. Jones, Erik Nash, and Joe Letteri), losing to Spider-Man 2. The film was also nominated for Best Sci-Fi Film at the 31st Saturn Awards.

In an interview in June 2007 with the website Collider at a Battlestar Galactica event, writer and producer Ronald Moore stated that he was writing a sequel to the film.[39]

In the two-disc All-Access Collector's Edition of the film, Alex Proyas mentions that if he were to make a sequel to the film (which he says, in the same interview, is highly unlikely), it would be set in outer space.

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• Ryan, Joal (2004-07-16). "The Björk-"I, Robot" Connection?". E! News. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30.
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• I, Robot at IMDb 
• I, Robot at the TCM Movie Database
• I, Robot at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films