The road to something is paved with good intentions
I, Robot is another one of those movies that has good intentions and a good core but goes awry with its weaknesses to ultimately falter and fail to reach its potential. Hello, summer blockbusters of the 21st Century!

The premise is an oldie but a goodie. It's Minority Report drawn like A.I. and salted with Paycheck. In the year 2035 mankind has become dependent on its robotic assistants. They cook dinner, run errands and walk the streets. U.S. Robotics, the leading robot manufacturer, is set to unleash its massive robot upgrade. The event is tainted by the apparent suicide of Dr. Alfred Lanning, the founding father of modern robotics. Will Smith plays Del Spooner, a detective suspicious of robots and the findings of the suicide investigation. He traces clues left by Lanning to uncover the truth, but he can't convince anybody to listen. Blah blah blah.

Will Smith as Will Smith
Will Smith delivers a typical Will Smith performance, so he's a joy or a bore, depending on your tastes. Some of his acting is downright serious and that runs inconsistent with the run-of-the-mill, charming Will Smith one-liners. The rest of the cast is mediocre at best. Bridget Moynahan is flat and uninteresting 90% of the time and Bruce Greenwood is cookie-cutter dull. One of this film's biggest weaknesses is that nobody in the cast comes even close to Smith's charisma, and he's not even all that good; there is no chemistry between actors in this movie.

The CGI in this movie, Sonny the robot excepted, is absolutely terrible. The CG effects are painfully obvious in every shot they are used. Everything from the 'splosions and action effects to simple city skylines reek of television-level CGI. The average film goer won't care, but the avid film-goer won't be able to cope with the visual inconsistencies.

The sad thing...
The sad thing is that beneath the Hollywood action Will Smith-vehicle is a pretty good sci-fi noir. All the film noir clichés are there: a hero with a dark past, a distrust of the city and industrialization, mystery, dark subject matters (suicide), etc. If you stripped the unnecessary over-done action, re-cast the supporting roles with more experienced actors and trumped-up the CGI, you'd have a great contribution to the canon of science-ficion films.

Instead, what we get is an insincere effort with a few bright spots beneath the surface. It's worth a matinee if you're a 14-26 yr old male. Otherwise it's probably still worth the rental.