How do you make an above-average science fiction action film?

Take one source text. Pick out your favourite set pieces and concepts. Choosing an author who doesn’t really have a huge amount of literary credibility will at least get the arty nerds off your back when it comes time to compare the two.

Mix with one generic action plot, with suitably placed chases and explosions. The explosions are the most important. Don’t try any subtle suspense business when you could blow something up. It’s much easier to screw up ‘subtle’.

Add two likeable stars. Will Smith and Bridget Moynahan will do nicely. Smith has some credibility as an actor, despite Men in Black II, and has excellent comic delivery. Moynahan is as cute as cute can be when she smiles. Let’s hold that smile back until the end, and provide the only real tension in the film. Both of them can be relied upon to give solid, if perhaps a bit unremarkable performances.

Filter from this mix any irritating, unbelievable technobabble. Only explain what things do — don’t try for how, because everyone knows that they haven’t actually invented intelligent robots yet. Besides, it just slows things down for no good reason. Use keywords — Positronic brains, nanites, uplinks. Simple, and easier to swallow for people who know more about science than you do.

For a bit of texture, add a twist. It doesn’t have to be particularly ground-shaking, but it’ll stop people from labelling your movie as ‘simple’ without putting in at least one reservation. They’ll have to say “straightforward,” or “pedestrian with one or two surprises” instead.

Finally, to make sure anyone insanely stupid in your audience can follow a plot, insert some very basic cultural reference that can be mentioned whenever the story’s moving, so as to signal to these lunkheads that they should shrug themselves out of their stupor. Although it might be overkill to use a Hansel & Gretel metaphor to spur a detective into action following “bread crumbs” — or, as one might also refer to them, “clues”. After all, following clues is kind of a detective’s job. Ah. Too late. Well, don’t do it again.

These elements pretty much describe I, Robot, but I should emphasise the attraction of a sci-fi action movie that doesn’t run into the ground every one of it’s themes, and leaves a few things open at the end. While the hero of the story is a bit of a luddite — a point made with an amazingly unsubtle reference to a particular brand of modern shoe — the story doesn’t provide an easy answer to his request for robots to have “more heart”. Anyone who’s even seen the trailer to this film could probably guess that this film takes rather a dim view of robots being controllable from one central location. However it is a shade more ambiguous on the matter of whether robots should have free will.

On the other hand, don’t be going to this film looking for some meaningful dissection on where the boundaries are between man and machine. I, Robot is primarily an action film. In a perfect world, there’d be a bit more balance, a lot more thought, and perhaps some less overblown plotting. But since you’re in this world, just sit back and enjoy the explosions.

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This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004. It concerns such pressing issues as . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.