Initially, Will Smith feels miscast as the stereotypical gruff renegade street detective. It's the year 2035, but every other cop show in the 1970's revolved around this crackerjack type cop just on the edge of getting his badge taken away by the tough yet enabling boss. Smith has a hard time carrying off cantankerous/emotionally scarred.

That copy cliche relationship seems even more outdated with all the robots running around. Yet it's exactly those robots that make Smith's character so ready to put his job on the line.

Still, eventually Smith becomes less the hard guy and more the victim turned hero. This seems a demeanor that he's a bit more comfortable playing. The pace is more consistant, never dipping, it rolls strong from beginning to end -- very well placed tension and action.

The Robots themselves are realized nicely on screen, not fantastically, not cheesy, but nicely. The same goes for the rest of the special effects; they're pretty good, but not great. "I, Robot" does an okay job of creating this futuristic city, yet it neglects a worldview. The focus never leaves that city. Again it's the plot and pace that drive the picture. The plot isn't anything terribly new, but there are some interesting twists to it, With interesting implications. And the dialogue, while imperfect, still offers those clever humorous zingers to spice up the action with comedy. Nice score too.

Overall, strong B+.

Interestingly enough Fox had begun developing a spec script from writer Jeff Vintar called "Hardwired" which was a futuristic murder mystery in which a robot was a suspect. During that time, Davis Ent. acquired the rights to the "I, Robot" short stories by Asimov. Since Asmov's world wound so well around Vintar's story, and with Fox wanting to make a big robotics movie, they decided to marry the two.