Hey folks... I've just received these two's perspective on BICENTENNIAL MAN, though I did have one person write in with a short tidbit saying they felt it was brilliant (which would be the exact opposite of what these two felt) so I have written him back and asked for him to elaborate on his opinion so we can hear the otherside of the story. There are some spoilers below, so if you are not familiar with the story you may want to stay away from this review... Besides... we're all gonna go see this one to see that dang X-MEN trailer aren't we? If it gets attached. Right?
Harry,
Darth Siskel reporting in on "Bicentennial Man" along with my apprentice, Darth Tso's Chicken. Me and Darth Tso's Chicken had an interest in seeing this movie, because it's about a robot forcrisake, but from the trailers it looked like one we didn't really want to pay $9.50 for, so we had no resort but to infiltrate yet another screening.
It turns out, this movie was worse than we thought a movie about a robot could possibly be. I mean, how could they screw this one up? A robot that lives through 200 years with a family. The premise is so good. It's based on a story by Issac Assimov. I have no idea when he wrote it, or if it was a good book. I'd guess the movie was very close to the book, because I could see this being a good read. However, this was not a good movie.....by a long shot. Might kids like it? Yeah, but they also like Pokemon so......
The only thing I really liked about this movie was the opening credits, which showed the Robot being built in the factory. Go see the opening credits, then walk out & see Toy Story2 again.
Plot? In 2005, a rich family buys a robot. Sam Neil is the father, and he lives with his wife & 2 daughters. The robot becomes part of the family, doing the cleaning, cooking, etc. & he starts to exhibit human traits. Like being able to carve wooden horses & make wonderful wooden clocks, & reading books, blah blah. One of the daughters is played by that little girl from the Pepsi commercials. You know, the scary one that sings with Aretha Franklin's voice, & is so recognized from those damn commercials that it amazes me any good director would put her in their movie. She was distracting as all hell in The Insider, & is here as well, making her the young version of the "Noxema Girl". Luckily, time passes so we see her grown up , & played by another actress with breasts, who I believe played about 3 or 4 desendents of her character. Huh? The same lady played the little girl, the daughter, the grand daughter, great great, etc. They were slapping old age makeup on everyone in this movie. Half the time it looked like Elmer's Glue, but hey, they spent all the money the robot suit, and from the looks of it, "Depends" for Robin Williams.
God, the robot looked like a gay version of the Tinman from The Wizard of Oz. The design was very mediocre, very boring & generic....a tight fitting silver suit, with a silver version Robin Williams' face slapped on it, and a few lines & curves here and there. I love robots. I love Optimus Prime, C-3PO, Maria, Ed209, Droidekas, Robocop2, Robotech, The Iron Giant, even R.O.B. the Robotic Operating Buddy from the NES! I like robots alot, and The Phantom Menace had robots walking around in the background that looked better than the Bicentennial Man. This is the main character, & he looked weak.
He was mostly silver/chrome, but parts of him were a bronze, which came across more like a flesh tone. The result? It looked like the robots buttcheeks were hanging out of his undies! This was just one of the things we goofed on to survive this slow movie. This movie is supposed to take place from the year 2005-2205, a 200 year span, & sitting in that theatre, it felt like the movie was 200 years in length!
The full focus of the movie is the robot, so we never get a taste of anything futuristic except for a few matte shots of the city with cars flying around. The world he lives in is never fleshed out well, like say a movie like Blade Runner was. Everything but the matte shots looked like something you'd see in the 1990's. Well, there were some "futuristic" sets & props that looked like they were on loan from StarTrek Voyager, or stolen from Levesden Studios after Episode 1 wrapped.
The music by James Horner didn't help any. And no this was not placeholder music. It was final, but the theme sounded exactly like the Braveheart theme with 3 notes changed at the end. Why does James Horner keep ripping himself off!?
Anyway, it sucks hard as a futuristic movie. So how does it stand as a drama about a robot looking to become human? Can you say.."Mr. Data goes to Washington" ?! This movie might've cut it, oh...thirty years ago. Right now, in 1999 this shit is tired material! This whole movie is like a re-tread of Data's exploits on StarTrek, Robocop, Iron Giant, Pinochio, and even the Tinman!! If they only had some heart. This movie was about as heartwarming as a Mentos commercial. Who were we supposed to relate to?! The gay robot that wants to be human, or the psycho bitch human that falls for him!?
Some comic moments were good, nothing to write home about. In fact, this movie should've been either a comedy, or a horror flick, with the robot killing everyone in sight about 45 mins into the story! That would've made it good. If you want a movie to crack jokes about all throughout, this is it! It was fucking weak. I'm tired, let me pass it off to Darth Tso's Chicken who loved this movie about as much as I did.
'DARTH TSO's CHICKEN' here.
Argh.....what a frustrating 2 hours. In addition to what Darth Siskel said I'll add the other things that bother me about this movie. First off this was supposed to be the future yet they never gave you the sense of any other world outside of this stupid robot's own life. Everything they showed just seemed generic. Even the matte painting shots of the "futuristic city" were so bland. Also there were dozens of things that they never even touched on such as what did people think of having these friggin' robots walking around the city? Were there people who were afraid of these things? What about the people who were 'for' having robots, and those protesting against them? I mean come on we have controversy about gay people being in the army and females having boxing matches with men. What about the malfunctioning robots? I know they didn't make a complete line of perfect androids! They didn't need to revolve the whole story around these things, but at least showing a little of this would give a backdrop to the world this robot lives in and would help us to have some kind of feelings, good or bad about him and what he is trying to do.
The other thing about this movie was that they would jump years ahead and either not explain certain things like how one person is a bum one moment and then ten years later he's a millionaire. Or they would explain everything about something that has changed in 5 seconds of throw away lines!! Anyway there are a lot more things I could rant about but I think you get the picture...... This movie blows!
-Ending Transmission-
darthsiskel@yahoo.com
darthtsoschicken@yahoo.com
