I must admit, I had low expectations from I, Robot. Perhaps it’s just that I see a lot of decent science fiction which is turned into utter dreck when adapted for the screen, but I steeled myself for the worst, plunked down my $8.75, and went to see it anyway, without reading a review.

The short of it: it rocks.

Will Smith plays a cop with a paranoid fear of robots. The chief scientist of USR has plunged to his death, an apparent suicide, on the eve of the world wide deployment of Nestor 5 robots: the latest in robotic technology. Smith suspects that a Nestor 5 may have murdered the scientist, and so begins the story.

This movie literally has everything: decent performances, a reasonable plot, scary scenes, uncertain motives, a mystery, and lots of kick ass action and effects. It is by far the best of the summer movie crop, and I give it 9/10 (I rarely give movies a 10/10, just on principle, so this is very nearly my highest rating). It doesn’t linger or languish like AI, nor is it just a disjoint collection of robotic special effects. See it. It’s fun. You’ll like it.