I, Robot

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Fabulous mental escape. It's fun and playful, rather than dark and foreboding. And there doesn't seem to be an original cyber-bone in the movie's body. But it's put together in a fabulous package.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The perfect sci-fi movie for a post-9/11 world, in that it tells us we're afraid of threats hiding in plain sight.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

This is a movie to restore the faith of those who had given up on science fiction after "The Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions." By adeptly combining action and ideas, it proves that Hollywood can still produce astonishing entertainment.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

Once this movie gets going, it works, and it works well. It has a slow buildup, but its final third manages to generate some eye-popping thrills.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Smith makes it look easy, but underneath the physical high jinks and slick veneer of I, Robot lies a performance of real discipline and intelligence.

Empire Kim Newman

The effects, arguably the best of the year, only add to the thrill.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

It's a high-tech thriller that really works.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Less ambitious than "Blade Runner" but more coherent than "Artificial Intelligence: A.I.," which it vaguely resembles, I, Robot is best during homely moments when Smith shows his human side.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

For its first two acts this flashy vehicle is an anodized titanium streamline baby. Then comes a robot rumble that brings the action to a crashing halt.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Although I, Robot provokes thought, it doesn't exactly deliver thought, despite the occasional Cartesian reference to "ghosts in the machine."

New York Post Lou Lumenick

Hollywood's umpteenth tale of robots run amok is surprisingly smart, cool-looking, nicely paced and well-acted.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

Moves along with great speed and verve, and it's got just enough of a sci-fi sheen to make things interesting, if not provocative. Philosophers and true believers may be disappointed, but for movie fans, I, Robot mostly delivers the goods.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

A summer action movie that has a brain and doesn't let it atrophy? Fan me, I'm fainting!

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

It's much more of an action flick than either "Metropolis" or "Blade Runner," but there's a provocative and visionary side to this free adaptation of Isaac Asimov's SF classic that puts it in the same thoughtful canon.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

It dares to test the audience in several ways: It may not be Asimov but its plot is truly labyrinthine, it works a specific theme (the very real possibility that robots will evolve on their own) and it's happy to end itself in a shroud of enigma.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Proyas does a jaw-dropping job, particularly in the opening scenes, of depicting Chicago in the year 2035.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

A routine Will Smith cop-on-the-hunt thriller at heart, I, Robot lacks imaginative excitement.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A movie of its kind and of its time -- functional, professional, slickly manufactured and slouching toward consciousness -- I, Robot is a perfect slave to mechanical convention.

Miami Herald Christy Lemire

A slick, shiny video game of a movie bursting with computer-generated chase scenes and cool gadgets.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Although Sonny is computer generated, Tudyk supplied his voice and body language -- provides the story's emotional core, an irony Asimov would surely have appreciated.

Time Richard Corliss

In the end, I, Robot is just an assembly-line product of a not very advanced model.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Scott Tobias

A cluttered, awkward blockbuster that's just smart enough to get itself into trouble.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

While not a classic by any means, is still a mostly entertaining experience.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Lacks both the intellectual rigor and the soulful sublimity of "A.I.," but it nonetheless allows some genuine ideas and emotions to pop up amid the noise and clutter.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

The film works best as a kind of mindless, action-packed B-movie. But on the A-level at which recent science fiction/fantasy films operate -- meaning the "Spider-Man," "Harry Potter" and "Terminator" series -- this movie falls woefully short.

LA Weekly Walter Chaw

Proyas merely assembles a mess of spare parts from better movies.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Performances, plot and pacing are as mechanical as the hard-wired cast.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

Impressive for Patrick Tatopoulos's production design but depressive for the juiceless story.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A humans vs. robots saga that feels machine-made, I, Robot looks to have been assembled from the spare parts of dozens of previous sci-fi pictures.

Slate David Edelstein

It walks and talks and moves very fast, but it never lives.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

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. The robots never seem to have the heft and weight of actual metallic machines, and make boring villains.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

A stylish, watchable, very familiar future-cop action thriller. What was once original is now almost completely derivative.

Film Threat Rick Kisonak

Proyas creates a futurescape that's snazzy in a “Blade Runner” lite sort of way and one or two of the film's effects are eye poppers.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

If you subtracted from the story and style components recycled from landmark sci-fi films of Hollywood past, you’d be left with Will Smith wisecracking over a box of unformatted floppies. I, Unimpressed.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

I, Robot strives to be so many things that it ultimately falls away to nothing, a heap of expensive metal parts.

Los Angeles Times Manohla Dargis

More disturbing, yet another robot, or maybe two, seems to have written a Hollywood script and hijacked a major studio production. Given the film's assembly-line screenplay and mechanistic storytelling, no other explanation seems viable. Certainly no one with a heartbeat or taste would blow so much talent, time and resources on such rubbishy writing.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

The film’s accumulation of unnecessary complications, bad visual choices, one completely superfluous character (LaBeouf), and tonally inappropriate quips makes us distractedly ponder the limits of human rather than artificial intelligence.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

If you see it, the sequel will be your fault.