Unlike previous movies I have reviewed before their official release, I haven’t even downloaded the I, Robot camcorder version. The trailer told me everything I need to know, except how the ego-maniacal inventor of the deadly robots gets his just desserts. I’m guessing he gets stuck in his own robot making machine right before an evil robot turns against his maker and presses the “Begin Robot-ification” button, which involves squirting acid into the eye socket area.
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The movie will be bad, but I worry more about the human toll it took during creation. Back when I was in college earning a media arts degree, long before I graduated and took what I like to think of as a “prestige paid internship” at Blockbuster Video, students were often required to write and produce their own media pieces. One guy was a wizard with the special effects, but it couldn’t make up for his painful idea to exclusively produce video tributes to his girlfriend (who wasn’t even that attractive). I thought of him when I thought of the computer effects guys laboring on I, Robot. No matter how hard they worked or how good a job they did, they had to know the movie would still be terrible because Will Smith was in it. I feel really sad for them. |
On a scale of robots, where Johnny 5 is a 0 and the Iron Giant is a 10, I, Robot is probably the rating of Twiki from Buck Rogers, the numerical equivalent of a 1.