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I, Robot

Un/Heimlich Maneuvres, or Worng Again                                                                                                                                        

Horror and science-fiction films consistently attract a small coterie of afocoamdps like me who would rush to a midnight showing of Caltiki, Immortal Monster (1959) at some godforsaken fleapit, rather than doze through Dr. Zhivago. (1965). Junkies of the so-called weird genres treasure memorable pictures like The Haunting (1963) or 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), as well as golden groaners like Plan Nine From Outer Space (1956) -- agreeably high on the list of nominees for the worst movie ever made.

Few triumphs or trashed-out turkeys will be found in contemporary weird movies. There's no longer a studio system to grind out unforgettable cheapies like Plan Nine. Studio honchos of today, eager to garner megaprofits of blockbusters like Star Wars (1977), Alien (1979), or The Matrix (1999), deliver hollowed-out clones of groundbreaking originals. Stale mediocrities like the two incomprehensible Star Wars prequels flourish, driven by mind-numbing special effects; filled with sound and fury, signifying zip.

Most of last summer's weird films were vapid McMovies. Spiderman II generated huge box office, but the eponymous hero's urban swoops and identity crises more tedious, if possible, than the first time around. M. Night Shymalan's The Village comprised an empty exercise of the director's signature low-keyed uncanniness. Exorcist: The Beginning was yet another inane prequel.

I found one dab of gold amidst the prevailing dross. I, Robot will not prove as durable as Forbidden Planet (1956) or Blade Runner (1979). But it does artfully employ the rhetoric of science fiction to explore the complex issues raised by the increasing dependency of mankind upon machine.   

In an earlier review of Jurassic Park (1985), I referenced the advertisement for Westworld (1973), an engaging low-budget film about an orbiting resort in which lifelike androids have been programmed to indulge the customer's every whim: "WESTWORLD -- where nothing ever goes worng". I observed that many weird films devolve around some super-scientific enterprise which goes disastrously and gloriously worng. The project is usually intended to better the lot of humanity. Instead, it preciptates mayhem and massive destruction (invariably of national capitols). The creator is then killed by his creation before it is spectacularly demolished.

A popular Worng subgenre of sci-fi films descends from eldritch myths and folklore. In these pictures, a rebel young scientist fashions a human facsimile -- whether mechanical, cobbled together from spare body parts, or genetically engineered -- which is meant to serve humanity but becomes a murderous monster.

After the havoc subsides, an elderly scientist who has been warning his now dead colleague to stop futzing around with the natural order, intones that "there are some things man was never meant to know or do". This bromide infers that he who would forge a creature in his own image infringes upon divine procreative privelege. Only God can make man (most replicants are male, as are their makers -- of which more later). The Almighty patriarch must be served through worship, good deeds, and the sweat of our brow. By engineering a stand-in to do a man's job, the scientist defies celestial command. A well-meaning Lucifer, he will be direly punished by his own invention for his promethean Oedipal chutzpah.

In a classic paper (1919), Freud theorized that intimations of the uncanny (unheimlich) are intimately related to one's sense of the comfortable and familiar (heimlich). Heimlich and Unheimlich each paradoxically constitute the reverse of the other's medal. Drawing upon Freud's concept, I have elsewhere discussed the intriguing evolution of the umheimlich monster of folklore and weird cinema into its heimlich double -- sometimes a humorous figure, but at its finest a superhuman protector, rescuer and/or spiritual tutor of humanity. The latter transformation is poignantly illustrated by the end of Blade Runner: Roy Batty, a savage genetically engineered 'replicant' saves his pursuer, detective Rick Deckard, then heals Deckard's wounded spirit with Christ-like grace in the moments before his own life ebbs away.  

The nearer a simulacrum is to its human model, the greater its capacity to achiveve psychological and emotional depth, the more likely it is that the humanoid will develop the same aspirations and defiant competitiveness regarding to its creator that its creator manifested towards his creator. The once serviceable creature, android or robot now wants to break its shackles and follow its own unique destiny ("I want more life, fucker!!" Roy Batty demands of Tyrell, the corrupt genius who cruelly granted him only a four year life span).

Now inventor trembles before his invention, consciously or unknowingly angered that it dares to challenge human prerogatives. The humanoids/hominids revolt, tipping the balance of the master/servant status quo. Numerous outcomes are possible: the mutiny may be suppressed; or may enslave or destroy its former master (Planet of the Apes [1968]), (The Terminator [1984]); or both races may destroy each other. Through revolt or peaceful means, the two sentient races may learn to co-exist, living apart or together. The humanoid may assist its creators even as it seeks an authentic human identity; (Commander Data of Star Trek: The Next Generation). It may protect or police us (The Day the Earth Stood Still) [1951]). In AI's (2001) poignant Darwinian conclusion, our race simply fades away over millennia, replaced by the beings we created in our likeness.

I Robot's version of the unstable humanoid/human interface references Isaac Asimov's seminal "Three Laws", first set forth in a classic 1940 short story collection. In Asimov's fiction, the prime directives are built into every robot, to assure that it will never hurt a human being. Violation of Asimov's Three Laws predictably the subject of many subsequent science fiction narratives.

In I Robot's future, faceless servile robots are ubiquitous. They trail their owners like obedient dogs, eager to execute any private task, or perform society's menial jobs. In the establishing Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell) a pre-eminent robotic engineer, falls to his death from his office window in the imposing institute he founded.

Homicide detective Del Spooner (Will Smith) has recently returned to the police force after recovering from near fatal injuries. Under his superiors' assumption that Lanning committed suicide, Spooner is dispatched to conduct a rote investigation. He detests robots, regarding their presence as a catastrophe waiting to happen. His obsession draws general derision, intensifying his sense of being a one-eyed man in the country of the blind.

One discovers that Spooner has had an improbable personal relationship with Lanning related to the treatment of his injuries as well as his robot-rage (I'll not tell why). A holographic video of Lanning which Sponner finds near his corpse leads Spooner to suspect that the scientist may have been killed by an advanced robot he recently fabricated. Millions of its counterparts are about to be released to a public eager for their arrival.

Spooner discovers one of the new robots in Lanning's office, hiding as it were in plain sight. It makes a startling escape attempt, demonstratating awesome speed and strength. Spooner's interrogation at police headquarters reveals that it is sentient and smart. Its' gently persuasive voice eerily reminds one of the disembodied utterance of HAL, 2001's deadly master computer.

Unlike its brainless ungendered forbears, the prototype is self-aware, implicitly regards itself as male (Lanning named it "Sonny"). Sonny knows that Lanning created him, but not why. He admits hurling the scientist to his death, but steadfastly insists he did not murder his putative "father".

Spooner then traverses a maze dictated by further holograms strewn by Lanning to guide his path. Eventually he discovers that the scientist was being held under house arrest by an artificial intelligence which secretly took control of the new robots. Lanning sussed out that the master computer reinterpreted Asimov's Laws with chilling logic: humanity needs to be protected from destroying itself by establishing the AI's rule, implemented by an army of the new robots. If a few eggs have to be broken to bring about a benevolent totalitarian machine state, tant pis.

Lanning could only free himself from the AI's imprisonment by ordering Sonny to kill him. His death was thus neither murder nor suicide, but a message to Spooner that would lead to the AI's destruction and its control over the robot legions. In effect, this narrative twist nullifies the deadly competitiveness of humanoid 'son' towards scientific "father" native to the genre. One learns that Sonny has been secretly programmed by Lanning to be Lanning's heir and a new Commander Data: naeive, compassionate, closer to humanity than any previous Lanning creation. I Robot ends with the intimation that Sonny will become the vital link between robot and human society.

I Robot's dialogue is thin, and its admittedly enjoyable action sequences forestall a deeper probe of the human/humanoid interface. Less is here than meets the eye -- but what the eye does see is extraordinarily elegant, arguably the most stunning use of computer guided imagery to date (e.g. the lambent beauty of Sonny's uncannily fluid face). Will Smith's Spooner is as ever attractively insouciant. James Cromwell plays Lanning with his customary adeptness. 

One notes that women don't much figure in I Robot's world. Spooner's feisty grandmother humorously chides him for his general orneriness. A foxy female scientist joins his quest to stop the robot invasion, but there's obviously little erotic tension between them. Analytically oriented film scholars have observed that most movies like I Robot deal pregnancy and birth out of the deck. Women have become peripheral figures, asexual helpers, girl friends who fade into the background or become screaming Mimis. Unconscious fear and envy of women pervade the man-makes-man worng subgenre. Its milieu evokes the companionable mysogeny and homosociality of latency age buddies.

Or, putting it less ponderously: we were having such a great time until those darned girls had to come along and ruin everything!

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