As anyone who read ol’ muttonchops Isaac Asimov knows, precious little of his classic I, Robot collection made into the Will Smith sci-fi blockbuster of the same name. Anyone hoping for a semi-faithful adaptation should either keep waiting or hunt down Isaac Asimov’s Robots. Frankly, since the latter option is a “VCR Mystery Game,” you may be better off letting time idle.
The Eastman Kodak production stars Stephen Rowe (Cyber-Tracker 2) as New York City ace police detective Elijah Baley, a head shorter than everyone else. He’s partnered with a walking, talking, trash can-looking robot named Sammy (Richard Levine, Silent Night, Deadly Night Part 2) to solve the attempted murder of a Spacertown roboticist (John Henry Cox, Bridge of Spies) in 24 hours or less.
As Baley stumbles upon vital clues to crack the case, he addresses the camera about evidence he’s submitting, prompting viewers to draw a card from the game’s deck. Or something like that. Watching the bush-league acting of Robots for its 45 minutes is rough enough; I can’t imagine having to play the accompanying game, too. What I can imagine is children so bored, they begged to go do homework instead.
One of Asimov’s celebrated Three Laws of Robotics is do no harm to humans, which the mere of existence of Isaac Asimov’s Robots contradicts. The drab whodunit looks as cheap as the video on which it was shot, seemingly made on Sesame Street sets. It plays like TV’s Alien Nation were retooled as a sitcom, but mistakenly beamed for broadcast minus a laugh track. —Rod Lott