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I saw this movie tonight, and although it wasn't a terrible movie, the more that I think about it, the more that it bothers me: The sheer stupidity of the characters, the plot holes large enough to sail an air craft carrier through, the 'clever' misdirections that are painfully obvious... They fester within me, like an infected boil, and I find that I can't sleep until I lance some of my hatred by spewing it here. Be warned that what follows contains massive spoilers (not that it matters, because you'll figure everything out in the first 5 minutes of the movie anyway.)

The best place to start, I suppose, is the contrivance that the rest of the movie is set up around: The inventor of robotics, Dr. Lanning, is killed, either through suicide or a malfunctioning robot. It turns out that it was suicide (sorta) because he was being held prisoner by the evil CPU and couldn't get information out about the evil robots any other way.

The whole setup is absolute nonsense. First off, the 'old' robots are perfectly safe - its only the new model of robot that can be controlled by the evil master CPU. The Dr seemed to have been in this situation for quite a while, and at that point, there were very few/almost none of the evil robots. Even if there were enough to keep him under control, they seemed to be doing an absolutely awful job of it - he somehow managed to build a massively improved robot ('Sonny') to fight them. I'm thinking that they maybe would have noticed that.

Somehow, we're supposed to believe that he commited suicide because that was the only way he could get a message about (however subtle) about the evil robots. If he was willing to die to get his message out, then its really not that hard. You might argue that the robots would just kill everyone he told, but he was making large press conferences - if he would have simply said it out loud there, it would have been essentially impossible for the robots to cover it up. Instead, he makes subtle hints about robots 'keeping secrets' that, really, no one would ever realistically pick up on. And, of course, he somehow manages to make a secret recording that sorta, almost tells whats going on, but doesn't.

The main hero's backstory is absolute idiocy, too. He doesn't trust robots because they saved him instead of a little girl that was probably unsavable anyway. I can understand maybe not liking robots after that, but his mistrust is absolute idiocy.

Who in the hell designed that building? Yes, lets put the main CPU 9000 stories up hanging from a bunch of beams. The whole thing was just STUPID. And considering how easy it seemed to be to break the beams and that they seemed to be the only thing holding the CPU up, obviously its a better idea to crawl out there to deactivate the main CPU than to simply knock it down. Oh, and pay no attention to the large power cords right there leading to the CPU.

Then there's the house scene. One of the most important people in the world dies under mysterious circumstances. And so, his house is quite naturally scheduled for demolition the next day. A huge mansion-type house, filled with furniture, works of art, computers, personal possessions, all of this brilliant scientist's private notes, a cat, etc, etc, and apparently, its standard operating proceedure to simply rip it down immediately after the owner dies without even bothering to check and see if there's anything worth keeping.

The fake Sonny death scene: They make a huge deal about how Sonny has a secondary CPU system, which is how he's able to ignore the 3 laws. I think they said the word 'redundant' about 8 times talking about it. Later in the movie, Sonny is supposed to be killed by injecting nanites into his brain. There's a painfully long and boring scene where Sonny gives a 'But I'm unique!' speech, followed by him getting injected. Not surpisingly, he doesn't die. Surprisingly, its not because of the redundant CPU that they made such a big deal about - its because the woman used a 'blank robot'. First off, what was the point of all the 'redundant systems' blather, and second off, that clearly wasn't a blank robot because it was clearly talking like Sonny (which no other robot did.) This is, by the one, the one single, solitary surprise in the whole movie, and only because it makes no sense at all.

One can't criticize this movie without mentioning the entire 'but robots CAN'T hurt anyone! They're programmed not to!' nonsense. Seriously, no robot has EVER malfunctioned? Ever? Even in development? I find this hard to believe. And considering that movie takes place 30 years in the future, there's just not enough time to realistically believe that robots would be so ingrained that everyone simply trusts them entirely.

And THEN, ever after its demonstrated that there is a massively malfunctioning robot. The idiot woman sees the robot behaving completely erratically with her own eyes, attacking another human being, and then when she gets it back to her lab, she tells the guards to leave without a single thought. At that point, I was wishing so hard for her death...

The robot factory scene: The factory makes 1000 robots per day. The number of robots in stock? Why, 1000, of course. Don't want to confuse the audience by having 5,249 in stock (because they only ship on Tuesdays) or 153 (because the last pickup was at 7PM.) And god forbid the factory makes 1,392 robots per day. A number like that would be hard for the audience to remember for the entire 3 seconds that its relevant.

The scene in the CEO's office after Sonny is captured: They're planning a massive robot roll-out of the new model. They know that one of those robots has gone crazy and probably killed someone, but has at least attacked someone, refused to follow orders and so on. The natural question is of course, well, what about the rest of that particular robot line? Maybe shipment should be delayed while they're double-check. Obviously, you (the movie audience)knows that delay would be impossible for whatever reason, but <b>they never even ask the question</b>.

Then, of course, you have the product placement. Painfully, painfully obvious product placement. So painfully bad that its essentially a plot point (by which I mean the shoes, of course. I think the shoes had more screen time than the murdered doctor did.)

The obligitory 'hand in your badge' scene: Why, god, why? Why is it impossible to make a cop movie without the 'hand in your badge' scene? Is it a law that this must be included in every movie?

The obligitory prophetic dream: Why, god, why? Why is impossible for someone to mention a dream in a movie without it coming true in the end? Is it a law that this must be included in every movie?

The obligitory Matrix-style moves: Why, god, why? Why is impossible to make an action movie anymore without gratuitous bullet-time effects? Is it a law that this must be included in every movie?

Ok, I think I may have vented enough hatred that I may be able to sleep now. I may be back if there's anything I forgot. Goodnight.

Wow.. I saw this movie a week ago and thought little of it, but I guess I end up seing a lot of bad movies and didn't recognize/ignored the bad writing.
Good things about the movie:
1. The Matrix moves were limited to one.
2. That kid from that Disney channel show had about 1 minute in the movie although he promoted it on talk shows...
Well I can't make a 3. What was with that lead robot? It was obvious when she didn't show the footage from the suicide that she(yes she has a sex) knew what was happening and what was best. But that had to be one of the worst characters ever. She had about 2-3 short scenes prior to the ending; one of which where she denied access to important footage of the suicide. There was obviously something wrong but why would such a weak character be used to head all these robots?

i can't believe i paid money to see that crap. asimov must be spinning in his grave.

I will cheerfully avoid the movie. I hate it when they take something good and cram hollywood garbage into it. I remember how disappointed I have been with such hollywood renditions of Doc Savage, and a host of others too numerous to mention. However, I really have enjoyed the X-Men movies, notwithstanding the inaccuracies, and the SpiderMan movies. I don't like the guy playing Peter Parker especially but Spidey was always one of my favorites.

Minor inaccuracies don't really bother me. Some people get all worked up over some minor scene layout changes to the Harry Potter movies made so the movie flows better, but I really don't get worked up by that sort of stuff.

The stuff that DOES bother me is when they take a random mediocre movie script about a robot revolt (we'll call it, say, Hardwired), then decide they can make a few more bucks by desecrating a classic series of stories that have probably done more than anything else to influence the public vision of robotics by associating the classic story with previously mentioned mediocre robot revolt script. The fact that the classic storyline bears no resemblence in any way, shape or form to the mediocre movie script doesn't seem to matter. All that matters is that they can perhaps trick a few extra people into shelling out $7 to see said movie which has nothing to do with the story its now supposedly based on.

Okay, I sat through a little bit of I,Robot again with a friend, waiting to see another movie, and something really bothered me.

Before getting injected, Sunny asks "Will it hurt?" If any of you have seen 2010 A Space Odyssey, SAL 9000 asks "Will I dream?", obviously a ripoff.

Todays movies are all just bubble gum for the brain.
No real value, like the old ones.
Some are good, MOST are bad.