Robin the Robot
Williams' Return to Sci-Fi Illogical

Years ago, Robin Williams burst onto the comedy scene as a strange alien named Mork. In the years that followed, Williams has distanced himself from science fiction and made a name for himself as a serious actor. Now, in the new film Bicentennial Man, the Oscar-winning performer has returned to science fiction to play a robot searching for humanity.

Bicentennial Man is based on the award-winning short story of the same name by science fiction pioneer Issac Asimov. The story deals with one robot's search for freedom, rights, and recognition as a man over the course of his 200 year life. Sadly, everything that made the story great: the conflict, the thought-provoking issues, and the sense of wonder has been lost or watered-down in this film.

Williams plays a newly purchased NDR-114 robot, quickly renamed "Andrew" by Little Miss (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) the youngest member of the family. As a robot, Andrew is expected to follow orders and do chores, but it soon becomes apparent that he is capable of much more. He begins exhibiting signs of creativity, which leads Sir (Sam Neill) to teach Andrew everything there is about being human.

Although Williams does an excellent job conveying emotion despite the robotic facade he wears, his true talent is shown when he still appears robotic after obtaining the face of a man. Yet, the characters in Bicentennial Man are cardboard caricatures. Truth be told, Asimov writes them that way. His sole concern is Andrew, and as a result the other characters in the story lack appeal. But in the film, all of the characters suffer from one-dimensionality and it reduces the story to the worst type of science fiction.

What ultimately fails, however, is the inability to recreate the world that Asimov so richly designed in his Robot series. While the movie does pay tribute to his work and his Three Laws of Robotics, they ultimately throw out those laws at the very end of the film.

The movie becomes little more than a modern retelling of Pinocchio, centering on Williams' comedic abilities. The heart and soul of the story, the chilling conflict of what makes us human, is lost amid sight gags and a prolonged sappy romance with Portia (Embeth Davidtz), the grand-daughter of Little Miss.

Finally, haven't we all seen this before? For seven years, Brent Spiner played out this storyline for us as Lt. Cmdr. Data on television's "Star Trek: The Next Generation." And while there were certainly moments where humor was used to highlight Data's unique condition, his search for humanity was ultimately a very serious and believable one. I'll take those old episodes like "Measure of a Man" over Bicentennial Man any day.

MY RATING: 3 out of 10.

RATED: PG-13
RUN TIME: 133 min.