The Reel Rejects - I, ROBOT (2004) MOVIE REVIEW!! FIRST TIME WATCHING!!

Starting point is 00:00:00 Accura dares to drive beyond standard. A torque vectoring superhandling all-wheel drive system? Standard in the Accura RDX. Panoramic moonroof and premium three-row seating, standard in the Accura MDX. Sound that surrounds you? An 18-speaker Bangan-Oloffson premium sound system comes standard in the all-electric ZDX,

Starting point is 00:00:22 the Accura RDX, ZDX, and MDX, where precision meets craftsmanship. Visit Acura.com to learn more. Make your next vacation unforgettable on Royal Caribbean's newest ship, Star of the Seas. It's everything you've loved about every family vacation you've ever been on, with mind-blowing thrills at the largest water park at sea, seven onboard pools for every level of chill, more than 40 ways to dine and drink,

Starting point is 00:00:49 and even more to enjoy at our award-winning private island, perfect day at Cocoa. This is the new Star of the Seas. Click or tap the banner to find out more. At Sierra, you'll always find apparel footwear and gear for 20 to 60% less than department and specialty store prices. But right now, it's clearance time. So you can save even more on everything you need to get active and outside. Visit your local Sierra store today. Let's watch IROPy.

Starting point is 00:01:26 Wow, that's it. Alex Proyas, nice job, sir. All right. Yeah, nice job. I really want to see Dark City now just because we're in the Alex Proyas mode. That was awesome. I really enjoyed it. We just got done watching IRobot. If you're listening to us in Apple or Spotify, give us a five-star rating, leave a comment.

Starting point is 00:01:43 Tell us we're cool. Wow. Okay. Give us. Oh, yeah. And also, RejectNation Shop.com. Get your shirts. I'm not wearing mine today, but yeah, that's one of my favorites.

Starting point is 00:01:55 I just wore that one yesterday. I got to do laundry, you know? Yeah, get your shirts become part of the real Reject Nation family. Patrick Tautopoulos. He was the production designer on Stargate and also Godzilla. Also, Matthew Broderick's character, I believe it's Nicholas, or I forgot his first name, but his last name is Tatopoulos was named after him. Oh.

Starting point is 00:02:19 In the Godzilla in 1998 film. Oh. He's a very famous set production designer, which I loved all the production. I love all the production design in this film, by the way. so damn good. Yes, it was awesome. Okay, you want to get into like what are your, what are your first thoughts? I loved it. I had some interesting messages and I loved the blend of a lot of different genres. You had sci-fi. You had action. There was a lot of psychology in it as well. And I really liked just this whole fascination like we talked about earlier about AI. It's just, it's a scary

Starting point is 00:02:51 prospect. Yeah. Yeah, there's a comfort too with like, you know, having robots that can take care of some of our daily needs. It's very like, it'd be nice, it convenient, but then there's the scary side of it too when like this, if it becomes, if you have like something like Vicky where it becomes self-aware and shit like this happens is very scary. If there was no possibility of something like this happened, I'd be more open to the opportunity of something of like having robots like this. Having said that, I love the whole angle of Sunny, the humanity in him. And I really loved Will Smith's character in this film.

Starting point is 00:03:32 And I love the arc and just how traumatic Will Smith played this character. And I love that they really took their time. Literally, the first shot of the film is in that water with the, you know, from Spooner's point of view. Yes. It was very distorted. It was like, all you could tell is there's water in a car. That's kind of really it.

Starting point is 00:03:53 But you don't really know much more than that. And again, it was very organically. done, not rushed at all. Like, they could have literally just spoon fed us. No pun intended with Spooner. But they literally could have just spoon fed us there and just said, hey, this is what's happening. But we know this guy's gone through a traumatic past.

Starting point is 00:04:10 He hates robots. He hates, like, just the wave of the future. He's more old school. But I love how they were, like, it was just more nuanced. And, like, you could just tell by, like, Will Smith's facial expressions and the way he goes about everything. And you know what I mean? It's not like, hey, we're going to spell it out loud from, like, dialogue and all

Starting point is 00:04:27 that exposition and stuff like that it was just more subtle and i appreciated that you know it wasn't like hit over the head and again i liked how it was revealed later on in the film in a more dramatic way when he poured his heart out to uh bridget monahan's character because she was like trying to wonder why do you hate them so much you know kind of thing and then also too from her they didn't really go into her backstory in regards to like we just saw it in our eyes yeah we could see it from her like you know she finds so much comfort in robots and clearly some human has done her wrong or something has happened in her past so it wasn't necessary to go into her backstory but again I like that they kind of left it ambiguous and you know more on the mystery side but we could tell

Starting point is 00:05:10 something happened and I love that sunny filled that void for her as well as Will Smith you know now she you know could fill now she has more embrace and trust in humans after the experience interactions she had with Lil Smith's character. So just all around and we'll get more into it. I want to hear your thoughts but I just thought it was a really good film. Yeah, I think them taking their time in the beginning, not showing us that full thing, that gives

Starting point is 00:05:33 us the humanity, his just human nature instincts, when we set off and he's running towards, he's running after the robot, all our brains go, yeah, I don't know, I see somebody running with a purse, like we would go there too. They're setting up his character to be old school and still be very part of the human world

Starting point is 00:05:49 Because if we had seen that story and the girl had survived, he was saved by a robot, we would have a difference of opinions in seeing the beginning of this movie and seeing him with his grandma or his mom there and her going, you know, the N5, the new ones are coming out and him going, listen, are you really like, why are you doing this? We would maybe be more on his side of like, yeah, why are you doing this? but we not giving us all of that information kept us kind of on the fold of like we're we're not quite sure like should we be for the robots makes life a lot easier and they gave that woman safety i mean it's great to open up on that of like a robot is running no one else can probably run that fast to go and get her exactly to go and get her inhaler and like give it right back to her it's we're all thinking in our heads wow if we had robots maybe maybe lives would be saved. They're setting the audience in that way of robots are helping human lives.

Starting point is 00:06:50 And the only time that then we get to question it is when finally then at the same time that Will Smith shares his story, that the robot did not save the girl because they know how to read the graphics of like who's going to be more likely to survive. And she had 11% chance he had more. We get it. But again, the human nature part, the humanity part, the heart part. is missing in these robots because also I think a little bit of intelligence I would if I was a robot or if I programmed one I'd say yeah I get it logistically this one's more likely to

Starting point is 00:07:27 survive also logistically punch a window go to her car punch a window right like unleash them who can swim oh you can't I'll help you and they probably both could have survived that's what's in my brain right now but and again it was a good setup for what happens later with sunny because now he's got some humanity in him that he can make that decision. It's not, oh, probabilities, I'm just going to do this and just take out Vicky now at this point and let Bridgett Monahan's character, Calvin, I'm just going to let Bridgett Monahan's character not survive in this situation. Right.

Starting point is 00:07:59 And I love how they were working as a team, too. It was such a good, like I said, such a good character arc. And also, you know, I was talking about some of the other genres of the, I like the whole murder mystery crime aspect that they brought to it too, which just, again, I know I'm probably going to be accused of having seen the film before because I was making a couple predictions that ended up coming true, but to me, it was kind of obvious. Being honestly transparent with you, I've truly never seen this film. I was just making predictions, as I always do on old videos.

Starting point is 00:08:27 Yeah, we always do that. Yeah, and anyways, but the point I'm making is I really appreciated the murder mystery aspect and the whole thing with Langley or James Cromwell's character, the breadcrumbs and the Hansel and Greils, I loved all that. That was like, it was intriguing. Like, what is going on here? Why are they doing this? And, like, I found it to be very riveting and, like, interesting.

Starting point is 00:08:49 It had me at the edge of my seat just like, I really want to know what the hell is going on. On top of the other aspect of, like, I want to know what this guy's traumatic past is. Right. On why, he hates these robots. And then when, by the way, how to give Will Smith for all the, you know, shit that happened at the Oscar, it is what it is. But point being is, give the man some props. That was some damn good acting. Yeah, he did a great job.

Starting point is 00:09:10 I mean, he poured his soul in that scene. I really love that acting. I mean, I was getting some tears in me almost there from that. Just the way he poured out. Like, I felt him in that moment. Like, it was also Survivor's guilt as well. Like, hey, it should have been me that went down. I mean, it would have been nice that both of us could have been saved.

Starting point is 00:09:27 But it should have been her. She was a 12-year-old girl. And I would have rather that robot saved her than me. Right. I felt that. It was great acting. And I feel like there wasn't a lot of exposition with the breadcrumbs. They allowed the audience to kind of figure it out,

Starting point is 00:09:40 sort of like how I was trying to figure it out, why are they going to do a pickup on Hansel and Gretel and the top of that, that's sitting on that chair where he died, that's information for us and I'm trying to ask him, what's the story of Hansel and Gretel? And then finally we know once he gets into the breadcrumbs, but they didn't have to really,

Starting point is 00:09:56 even the exposition where he's like, he's leaving breadcrumbs for me, it came out and not in a way where it's like, we kind of have to put this in there so you can keep up. It came together when he was telling Moynihan's character with the other, with Sunny sunny there. And it didn't feel like exposition. It just felt like a really well-written script.

Starting point is 00:10:16 I mean, from the start to the end, I was on board with his script. Everything they said, the lines, it was really smartly written with some really heartfelt moments. And I loved the, I loved the special effects overall, but I really loved how when he started to draw, it looked like an etch of sketch. And that callback to him at the end, and it just looking exactly like what we're going to see. It felt, it just, there was something that drew me into the way that they told this story. And I think it had a lot to do with the special effects in the way they showed it because they could have done, you know, with us, like we've watched movies that are even after this that

Starting point is 00:10:56 CGI is thrown in there and we don't like it. We're sort of pulled out of the storyline with it if it's too much. They did a really good combination of special effects along with practical, especially when he's running in that building exploding behind him. And then we see a stuntman hold on to the floor that caves underneath. That was like practical. The rest of it was mixed with the CGI. But the way they mixed it was perfect.

Starting point is 00:11:20 It didn't look too out of place to me. Even with the Audi, when he gets combined in with the robots and the Audi's trying to, you know, go in that tunnel and move around. It was great. It was great. I was in it the whole time. I didn't, I wasn't taken out because I was like, that's not real. This is too much CGI. I was really in it.

Starting point is 00:11:38 I was like, this seems like a real. car chase to me. And the reveal that he had a bionic arm and that's how he knew James Cromwell's character, which again lays the seed work for, hey, I don't like what's happening with Vicky and all this. And this is the only way. And I know this man has hatred for robots. This is the only way I can get through this man. I have to program Sonny this way. And unfortunately, my life has to end. Right. This is the only way of communication. It's just a very smart, well done script in my opinion. Even if the audience didn't catch it like you did, they still, when they told us, it wasn't Will Smith's character telling us, this is my bionic harm, the doctor did it. It was her. It was Moinehan

Starting point is 00:12:14 who went, that's why you know the doctor. It wasn't all laid out for us. It was like they allowed us to sort of catch on board with that story with them at the same time that didn't feel like laying on all this information. So you're going to understand, which I freaking hate. Yeah, totally. And I was going to say, too, I love the way Sonny was developed throughout the film. Like, you know, just learning his humanity. Like just from the moment, there was a shot you called out. that I love to, when he was at the police station and he watched Will Smith, you know, wink to Chee McBride, his friend, the lieutenant or his captain, whatever. Right.

Starting point is 00:12:48 And but that shot that we got with him learning that shot and then asking him, what's the significance of this? It's about trust. And then when he had Bridget Monaghan in, you know, when he was like pretending to fake out Vicky with, you know, holding her. And then I was like, but I love little moments like that. And it wasn't a forced callback. It was like, no, this is a pertinent callback.

Starting point is 00:13:09 to something that happened earlier that he had learned. Will Smith had told him about him. Like, yeah, that's why I called it out there. And again, if I had seen this movie, I'm not calling out things that, you know, I'm not going to be calling out predictions like this if I had seen the movie, obviously. But the point I'm making is that was a, I was expecting it because I'm like, you got to come back with the wink now. Like, you set that up there so beautifully.

Starting point is 00:13:30 Like, if you don't do it, I was just thinking as a screenwriter, like, this is such a missed opportunity if you don't do the wink. That's why I was calling it out there. I was like, this is the moment, do the wink. Because what Will told him is it is a form of trust. Yeah. And we're in that position now where the wink is the only thing he can say. He can't say like, trust me.

Starting point is 00:13:49 He's got to do that wink when he's holding her because, I mean, Will's instinct is like, oh, you're going awry again. I'm going to have to kill you all. And as many of you know, like, you know how it works in movies. Like, they set things up in movies so that that can come back later on in the film as in like Madam Webb when she was showing them how to do CPR and then such a force to movie. Don't worry. You don't need to. But it was done in such a forced way. You're like, you know, that's going to be, you know, it's going to come back. But again, the way it's done

Starting point is 00:14:14 there is so unsatisfying. But this was done so well in my opinion. Exactly. And it's the same way with Hansel and Gretel. That was a very subtle pickup in the beginning that it's just, we watch films a lot that I was like, they were going to give us that pickup for a reason. But it wasn't over, it wasn't overly handed. Like, it wasn't overhanded in the way that they showed us. So I really enjoyed them working through those breadcrumbs and I really liked the fact that the hologram is like you have to ask the right questions. I think that's really smart writing that he's like I don't know. I forget what his line was like I don't have that answer which is why I went wait is he a robot in the beginning. I'm limited on my speed or something. I forgot what it was yeah. That's why I questioned it

Starting point is 00:14:55 and thought like wait is he a robot and we're like he can't because he looks human. I thought he was human at first. And then I was like I knew with that line there is. no way he's human, because if responses are limited, it's not a human response. My response is limited. It's, yeah, my responses are limited. And I really enjoy that you have to ask the right questions. That's a lot of, I forget what other film, another story does that, where you have to ask the right questions when you're a detective.

Starting point is 00:15:21 That's the story of a detective. You're asking questions, but are you asking the right ones? And I really like the way that they played with that in the script. and I wish I could pull out the show or the movie that does that. There is a movie or a show where there's a detective. I know it's the HBO show

Starting point is 00:15:40 with Jody Foster where she's the detective. It recently came out this year. She tells the newer detective you're not asking, that's not the right question. Ask another one. And I love that because in the world of detectives,

Starting point is 00:15:54 if you're not asking the right one, she's ahead of you. She wants you to learn without having to give you the information. And I like that. that. So it's like just ask another one. And they played with that in this script, which I really, really enjoyed. Overall, I loved it. I loved the way that it looked. I really liked the soundtrack. Um, and I loved all of the actors. I was sad that we didn't get to see

Starting point is 00:16:14 Shia LeBuff more. Look up that trivia. Um, I, because I love Shia LeBuff. I just saw a, a heads up on an article that was like, this is Shia LeBuff's return, first return to the red carpet in like eight ears or something. He had this big beard. He looks a little bit bigger. And I was like, yeah, I miss him. Like, where has he been? I'm going to tell you guys real quick. I went to Catalita Island in like 2018 to spread my mom's ashes. It's that story. But I, Shia LeBuff was there because I went on Christmas with my aunt. He was there with seven, uh, looks like orphaned children and his model girlfriend that he was just taking on a trip for Christmas. Yeah. Wild. So he was, I don't know if he was helping a charity or something.

Starting point is 00:17:02 I know they were not his children, but Shia LaBuff is just such an, he's such an odd, charismatic, great actor, but also an odd guy just overall. The fact that he just had all these kids running around with him in these like golf carts. And that's just a funny story about Shailabuff. Let's get to this trivia, though. Is there any good stuff? We shall see. So the car used by Will Smith's character is a concept car.

Starting point is 00:17:27 I think we both figure that called Audi R. which was designed exclusively for the film and includes special features suggested by the director Alex Proyas. Wow. I wonder if you could like get a made up like version of that car to be like, give me that I robot car. Wow. All right.

Starting point is 00:17:44 You're going to be shocked by this one. All right. Let's do it. No reshoots were required a rarity for a film as big as this. Wow. Great job, Alex. That means you had a really good first AD. Wow.

Starting point is 00:17:56 And they made sure that you got all the shots that you needed and did them. right. That's amazing. No reshoots. That's impressive. That is amazing. For the character of Sunny, the accused robot, the effects team used the same process that was used to create Gallum in the Lord of the Rings trilogy with Alan Tudik providing the body movements and voice for signing. I really loved Alan Tudic. His performance at the voice. He's great. I believe he was also K-2-S-O and Rogue One Star Wars story. He's phenomenal. Wow. And did you ever see, what is it, wreck at Ralph? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:18:30 I'm King Candy. Oh, he's at? That's Alan Tudick. Oh, cool. I mean, you would recognize him my show, you know Alan Tudick. Yeah, I do. Of course.

Starting point is 00:18:39 Okay. Yeah, he's a great voice actor. He's a silver man or whatever that is. Regular actor, voice actor, he can do it all. Yeah, he's great. I'll do a couple more of the regulars, and then we'll do a couple spoilers.

Starting point is 00:18:49 Okay. Director Alex Proyce had a very difficult time with 20th Century, Twainth Century Fox Studio, had Tim Rothman, I know who is, who was threatening to remove the film's ending and replace it with more jokes just days before the film's premiere. What?

Starting point is 00:19:05 Proyas intended to write a book about his experience making the film, which he describes as trying to run a marathon with the studio constantly throwing chairs in his path. But friends warned him that he'd never work in this town again. Even without the tell-all, I-Robot was his last studio film he ever worked on. Alex? That's what it says. I don't know. Wait, because he didn't follow the studio executive's orders?

Starting point is 00:19:27 I guess. Oh my goodness. You know what? I'm telling you right. I'm telling you right now, I would not have been okay with the way that this ended. And if they decided to just be all joking,

Starting point is 00:19:40 this is not. That wouldn't have felt appropriate. This is like, that's like when I watch those movies and I'm like a student, when the pacing and the tone is not right for comedy, get out.

Starting point is 00:19:50 You need a specific director and a specific vibe for that. And I guarantee you the movies that I've seen when they're like, do it and just hire comedic actors. to say a line. It doesn't work. It's a studio executive note and I hate it. Yeah, and also for the situation that they just dealt

Starting point is 00:20:03 with. It's ridiculous. Give me a break. Why do we? We don't mean jokes. This is a sci-fi action movie. Get out of town. I'm glad Alex stuck to his guns on that. I mean, it sucks that he didn't do anymore. Did he really not do anything after this? That's what it says. I mean, he did more movies after this, but it just says no more studio films.

Starting point is 00:20:19 Oh, well, good for whatever. Studios suck. Will Smith told how he wrecked the motorcycle at around 60 miles per hour during the filming of the scene at the robot storage facility. You can see him begin to lose control on the film. Oh my God. Was he hurt? It doesn't say.

Starting point is 00:20:34 Holy to Molly. Wow. Wow. Okay. Okay. Let's see. Let me go to the spoilers. Yes.

Starting point is 00:20:44 We're almost done, guys. We're just two or three really quick. Okay. Spoilers. The idea of a robot hiding and a large group of identical robots comes from the Isaac Asimov story. Little Lost Robot, which appeared in the original book. Sunny's dream in which slave robots are liberated comes from the Asimov's short story, Robot Dreams, a sequel to the book.

Starting point is 00:21:04 Oh, okay. Interesting. That's cool. All right. I'll do one more. Let's see if I can get a good one here. Vicki's intent to take over the world in order to keep all humans safe is, in fact, as the zeroth law of robotics, a robot may not harm humanity or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm. Okay. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's very, it's a very good, like, reminder of Alexa. I mean, we all got one. I mean, I definitely have one. And I'm, I'm thinking of the updates. And I'm like, eventually, you know, she may reach more of a sentient mode. She's not luckily. She's just a little block. Right. But, I mean, imagine if we have built, it's very, it would probably be very easy. As we said, as we spoke about it in the intro, that they're already building robots. A ton of them in China. I saw a movie. where they're making them look very human.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And they did look human to me, besides the faces. They look very human. The breasts of the bodies look very robotic. It's definitely kind of a scary time. We're on the threshold of that may be possibly coming true. Because if you have one update, just like all of our Macs, all our Apple phones, Alexa can get an update. You wake up the next morning.

Starting point is 00:22:14 You don't have to think about it. It's just updated for you. And if we're living in that world of where any website or anything can get hacked, that's the same as a robot. They can hack into the robots. That's what you said. Just all it takes is one hack. All it takes is one hacker.

Starting point is 00:22:29 And we've all seen just how a hacker can just take down the whole mainframe of our system of all the electronics, everything. And I don't know, play videos everywhere and be like, you need to give us money or you'll never get your electricity back. I don't know what these people do. But you get what I'm saying. It is a scary thought to watch this movie saying that this is what they think it'll look like in 10 years.

Starting point is 00:22:51 I'm like, we're getting, we're getting. We're not totally. there, but we're getting close to having the robots in our lives and possibly seeing what could be a disastrous experience for human nature, just in general, if we become too reliant on them. And I think this movie did a great job. Yeah, I love this movie. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it.

Starting point is 00:23:11 Bro fucking, oh, Alex. Good job. Don't listen to the studios. They got crappy notes. I tell you, it's some old guy up there who doesn't watch enough movies and doesn't have any instincts of, like, what humans do and versus robot, and they're like, throw some jokes in there. Good on you, Alex. You're now my new favorite director because of that trivia.

Starting point is 00:23:29 I respect you even more. And I hope you're out there making indie films. I'll watch every single one of them. And Alex, I'll respect you even more if you hire Tara. Yes, please. Cast me. Call me in. All right, that's all we got for you.

Starting point is 00:23:41 We love you guys so much. Thanks for the support. Don't forget to leave a comic. Share this video. Tell us what you thought about I Robot. We love you. We love you. And we will see you on the next one.

Starting point is 00:23:55 Thank you.

Your Ad Here

The Reel Rejects - I, ROBOT (2004) MOVIE REVIEW!! FIRST TIME WATCHING!!

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.