I, Robot

No, I'm not talking about the season 1 episode of Buffy, I'm talking about the movie where Robots go bad.

I had relatively low expectations for this film. Not that it was going to be bad, that it was going to be 'robots are going to kill us all'. I'm not for that (I don't want robots to kill anyone).

Director Alex Proyas is an Australian who has headed up 2 previous flicks filmed here: Dark City and Garage Days. This was the reason I went to see the film. I was hoping to like it.

I did. I don't think it will be a film that everyone will enjoy. It's varied in it's approach to the story. The plot is rather simple and the plot twists are not very twisty, but I never felt bored by it.

If you like Will Smith because of his talent, it is a nice change to see him play an angry cop. If you like Will Smith because of his 'talent', then you will probably really enjoy the first 5 minutes where he shows a lot of skin.

It was the things that surprised me that made me like it. I felt like it was a quiet film. It's not, there aren't noisy bits, but it had an lower overall volume intensity (I'm not talking purely sound level here). It's promoted like an action film but it doesn't really fit that category exactly. I'm not giving anything away by saying Will doesn't have sex with the leading lady. There was a moment when I thought 'If you kiss her and sleep with her now, I'm leaving'. He didn't and I stayed. So that was good.

I was surprised by the tenseness of the first half, it fell away once the robots went psycho. Unexpected to actually have that from the very start. So often the ominous feeling has to be built up, because the concept is so flimsy 30 minutes of mind numbing 'character histories' are shown so we are concerned when they get the crap beaten out of them by the big bad.

I really liked the robots designs and how they were created. I actually stopped thinking of them as CG characters. I was never distracted by 'real' actors eye lines being wrong and physical with actors contact was excellent. They were nicely creepy.

I do admit to thinking about the similarities between the Terminator bots and these bots. We're taking over the world. A different bent of course, but it's hard to miss.

I certainly have a new respect for ants.

There were a couple of shots in the final battle thing where the camera did some big loop-the-loops round the action. Like being on a theme park ride. I gripped my seat, not from feeling ill or woozy, but from the extra punch they added. They are some of my strongest mental images from it.

I'll put on it my DVDs to buy list.