I, ROBOT reviews...
#27
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Originally posted by scott1598
"I, Robot" is to the 2000's what "Runaway" was to the 1980's.
I'll take Tom Selleck in "Runaway" than Will Smith in "I, Robot".
"I, Robot" is to the 2000's what "Runaway" was to the 1980's.
I'll take Tom Selleck in "Runaway" than Will Smith in "I, Robot".
Plus RUNAWAY had Gene Simmons and Kirstey Alley.
#29
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Originally posted by UKingdom
lots of eye candy (thanks to Alex Proyas, the visuals in the movie are great
lots of eye candy (thanks to Alex Proyas, the visuals in the movie are great
We’ll see what people still think of him once GARAGE DAYS hits video for all to see…
#30
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Personally I hated the Crow, found it melodramatic, overwrought and campy, but I absolutely love Dark City, and haven't seen Garage Days or I, Robot yet. So the jury's still out on Proyas for me.
#31
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It was okay. I'm not going to pan it. Will Smith played the Will Smith role and thats what people expect to see, and the special effects were pretty good.
#33
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Originally posted by iggystar
I enjoyed it. Good summer popcorn movie. It was much better than I expected it to be.
I enjoyed it. Good summer popcorn movie. It was much better than I expected it to be.
#34
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My review (very long, you have been warned):
First, let me state that I'm a huge fan of Asimov's Sci-fi stories. As is commonly known, and fairly obvious to anybody familiar with the good Doctor Asimov's works, the movie is only loosely based on his Robot series of stories. And much to my surprise, this movie adaptation does not totally suck.
I know, I was shocked too. I went in expecting to get angry about how they ****ed it up. Well, they didn't. Instead, what they basically did was to capture the feel of some of the robot stories by creating a new story which had room for action sequences.
Let's be upfront though.. there's a lot of cool action sequences. Amazingly enough, the CGI in this flick is actually extremely well done, unlike, say, Spiderman 1. The problem I had with Spidey was that the CGI was totally obvious. The smoothness and clear fakeness of the CGI sections in Spidey took you out of the movie. However, in "I, Robot", the CGI is basically all-pervasive. The robots look fake as hell, but then they are supposed to be fake.. they're frickin' robots. All in all, they did an amazing job at making the fake bits and the real bits look like they really were part of the same scene. Even the 100% CGI sequences retain the same general feel and look, so there's no abrupt transitions to draw you out of the story.
Now to the story. This will be the spoiler full part, because I don't feel like beating around the bush and not giving away the ending.
Final Otto tally: Worth seeing at the theater. This is about my highest rating for a movie, however in this case I only suggest it because of the high quality CGI scenes and the action, which is, frankly, some of the best I have ever seen. If the CGI had sucked a little bit, I'd say wait for rental.
First, let me state that I'm a huge fan of Asimov's Sci-fi stories. As is commonly known, and fairly obvious to anybody familiar with the good Doctor Asimov's works, the movie is only loosely based on his Robot series of stories. And much to my surprise, this movie adaptation does not totally suck.
I know, I was shocked too. I went in expecting to get angry about how they ****ed it up. Well, they didn't. Instead, what they basically did was to capture the feel of some of the robot stories by creating a new story which had room for action sequences.
Let's be upfront though.. there's a lot of cool action sequences. Amazingly enough, the CGI in this flick is actually extremely well done, unlike, say, Spiderman 1. The problem I had with Spidey was that the CGI was totally obvious. The smoothness and clear fakeness of the CGI sections in Spidey took you out of the movie. However, in "I, Robot", the CGI is basically all-pervasive. The robots look fake as hell, but then they are supposed to be fake.. they're frickin' robots. All in all, they did an amazing job at making the fake bits and the real bits look like they really were part of the same scene. Even the 100% CGI sequences retain the same general feel and look, so there's no abrupt transitions to draw you out of the story.
Now to the story. This will be the spoiler full part, because I don't feel like beating around the bush and not giving away the ending.
Spoiler:
Final Otto tally: Worth seeing at the theater. This is about my highest rating for a movie, however in this case I only suggest it because of the high quality CGI scenes and the action, which is, frankly, some of the best I have ever seen. If the CGI had sucked a little bit, I'd say wait for rental.
#35
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I was hoping for a smart intelligent scifi, but it was too much like T3 or the Matrix Trilogy or AI. Action was cool, but it was too talky and not interesting talk either.
Smith was okay, Bridget is as usual (but I can't help seeing her as Sandra Bullock's sister), but Alan Tudyk stole everything.
I like Proyas. He did his best with the wannabe Minority Report world and added some intersting (and vertigo-inducing) angles and tricks.
The scene(s) with that kid were dumb and pointless. There was only one real good joke ("Sorry I'm allergic to BS), but for some reason evryone was laughing. I haven't said this in awhile, but the art direction, CGI, and other FX stole the show. Worth seeing for that, or you could watch that 10 minute thing on HBO. I still found it kinda fun, although it was a tad too long.
Grade: C+
Smith was okay, Bridget is as usual (but I can't help seeing her as Sandra Bullock's sister), but Alan Tudyk stole everything.
I like Proyas. He did his best with the wannabe Minority Report world and added some intersting (and vertigo-inducing) angles and tricks.
The scene(s) with that kid were dumb and pointless. There was only one real good joke ("Sorry I'm allergic to BS), but for some reason evryone was laughing. I haven't said this in awhile, but the art direction, CGI, and other FX stole the show. Worth seeing for that, or you could watch that 10 minute thing on HBO. I still found it kinda fun, although it was a tad too long.
Grade: C+
#37
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The film was a piece of shit, plain and simple.
Akiva Goldsman is a no talented hack and Alex Proyas should be ashamed of himself.
I want my $6.00 back. Thankfully it wasn't nearly as awful as Van Helsing.
Akiva Goldsman is a no talented hack and Alex Proyas should be ashamed of himself.
I want my $6.00 back. Thankfully it wasn't nearly as awful as Van Helsing.
#42
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Originally posted by Gcomeau
Frank the tank said it. I didn't expect it to be much of a movie but i was pleasantly surprised. Oh yeah the one liners were great!!
Frank the tank said it. I didn't expect it to be much of a movie but i was pleasantly surprised. Oh yeah the one liners were great!!
With that said, I was also pleasantly surprised with the movie. I haven't read the story, so I can't comment on how/if they butchered it.
I liked Will Smith's character. He was much less over the top than he usually is in these summer flicks.
The CGI was very, very well done. Much more so that most of the flicks I've seen in the past year or so.
Overall, I'd give the flick a B rating.
#43
DVD Talk Limited Edition
Originally posted by Otto
<unspoilered, because this part doesn't really spoil anything>
All in all, it was a good flick. It wasn't total crap, and it held pretty true to the spirit of the good Doctor's stories, if not the actual text of them. But to be honest, I can kinda see that, because the stories were not really movie oriented. They were people talking, and ideas, and concepts.. They never really came down to action oriented drama, and would not have made good movies if strictly interpreted. The movie did a reasonably good job at keeping the ideas and putting in enough drama and action to make the flick interesting.
<unspoilered, because this part doesn't really spoil anything>
All in all, it was a good flick. It wasn't total crap, and it held pretty true to the spirit of the good Doctor's stories, if not the actual text of them. But to be honest, I can kinda see that, because the stories were not really movie oriented. They were people talking, and ideas, and concepts.. They never really came down to action oriented drama, and would not have made good movies if strictly interpreted. The movie did a reasonably good job at keeping the ideas and putting in enough drama and action to make the flick interesting.
I have to say I'm really surprised to see so many people give this a bad review. I thought it turned out to be a great action flick . . . a good balance of action, sci-fi, some humor, and some brain candy to chew on.
I thought the Smith did a pretty impressive job and movie away from the always light-hearted action characters that he usually plays (i.e., he shows a relatively broad range of emotions in this).
And, as jonpeters mentioned, Alan Tudyk did an awsome job . . . did anyone else see him in the crowd of police officers on the floor near the end? I'm wondering if they gave him a brief part to avoid some of the nonsense that Andy Serkis dealt with around Oscar time for not actually being on screen?
Anyway, I'm really glad I ended up seeing this and could very well see possibly cathing it again in the theaters.
#44
Does anyone remember what Sonny said when he was running down the hallway with VIKI talking to him? VIKI said something to the effect of, "We have to do this, it makes sense, don't you see...?"
And he replied with, "Yes, I understand, but it all sounds so ______"
I felt like I heard him say something that sounded like "fargas." Anyone remember?
And he replied with, "Yes, I understand, but it all sounds so ______"
I felt like I heard him say something that sounded like "fargas." Anyone remember?
#46
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Originally posted by PacMan2006
Does anyone remember what Sonny said when he was running down the hallway with VIKI talking to him? VIKI said something to the effect of, "We have to do this, it makes sense, don't you see...?"
And he replied with, "Yes, I understand, but it all sounds so ______"
I felt like I heard him say something that sounded like "fargas." Anyone remember?
Does anyone remember what Sonny said when he was running down the hallway with VIKI talking to him? VIKI said something to the effect of, "We have to do this, it makes sense, don't you see...?"
And he replied with, "Yes, I understand, but it all sounds so ______"
I felt like I heard him say something that sounded like "fargas." Anyone remember?
#48
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When I first heard of this movie, I was excited -- finally, Asimov's Robot stories on screen! As I read about the production however, I became progressively delusioned that anything close to Asimov's vision was going to get made. As such, I went into this movie expecting very little. With that expectation in place, I was actually pleasantly surprised. (Although I think I would have been enormously disappointed had I gone in expecting an Asimov movie.) This is actually a pretty good summer flick and well worth seeing in theaters. Very little to do with Asimov, but fun in its own right.
I'd like to comment on the 'zeroth law' that Otto talks about above:
If anyone's at all interested, there is a science fiction trilogy that deals with this issue very well (mostly from a more ethereal artificial intelligence perspective rather than a robot perspective): The Golden Age trilogy by John C. Wright.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
Well worth the read if you're an I, Robot fan.
I'd like to comment on the 'zeroth law' that Otto talks about above:
The zeroth law states that a robot must protect humanity, and may not allow humanity to come to harm. This is basically just the first law applied to greater numbers of human beings.. If a robot can save either one person or two people, but not all three, it will save the two people, since they are of the greater number. When they learn to read minds, they are able to perceive other types of harm than mere physical harm, and the later novels in the robot series actually deal with this.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...books&n=507846
Well worth the read if you're an I, Robot fan.
#49
DVD Talk Limited Edition
The only problem I had with the movie was the fact that it took place in 2035. The technology level and infastucture level seems to be too advanced to be only 31 years from now. It should have been set in 2070 or something. It did have me thinking what my age would be then and what caracters in the movie would currently be my age now.
Other than that, I enjoyed it.
Other than that, I enjoyed it.
#50
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i enjoyed it alot. i think it was better than minority report.
and at least fresh prince didn't have that over-the-top sass:
oh no you did not shoot that robot microchip shit at me!!!
you besta back up, before i shortcircuit your existence
get ready for megahurtz!!!
and at least fresh prince didn't have that over-the-top sass:
oh no you did not shoot that robot microchip shit at me!!!
you besta back up, before i shortcircuit your existence
get ready for megahurtz!!!
Last edited by peon73; 07-19-04 at 02:53 PM.