The tangentially Isaac Asimov-derived I, Robot is Will Smith's latest attempt at a summer blockbuster, this time substituting futuristic robots for his usual aliens (Independence Day, Men In Black) and bullets (the Bad Boys series). And while some of the action sequences are exciting, the new film is considerably below the standards of Smith's previous work, not to mention the source material, or the past sci-fi films of director Alex Proyas.

The film, not "based on," or "adapted from," but merely "suggested by" Asimov's collection of short stories, ultimately fails because it lacks confidence in its premise, which was never particularly strong to begin with.

Proyas, who directed the cult hit The Crow (1994) and the critically adored Dark City (1998) sinks into a sort of Hollywood convention more commonly associated with co-screenwriter Goldsman, who scripted the Joel Schumacher editions of the Batman franchise.

Smith stars as Del Spooner, a detective in the Chicago of 30 years in the future. Indeed, the futuristic look of otherwise familiar Chicago is one of the film's bright spots.

Robots constitute the nation's servant class, and in one of the film's more unbelievable touches, Smith's cop appears to be the ONLY PERSON ON EARTH who has considered the possibility that the they aren't what they seem. He has a secret reason of his own for not trusting them, which is so conventional and weakly established that I was shaking my head in the theater. Smith's fears, of course, are realized when the robots' inventor (James Cromwell) commits suicide. Or does he???

Smith gives the same performance he has in every one of his action movies since Independence Day and as the female lead, a "scientist", Bridget Moynihan shows that she's one of those model/actresses who should have stuck with modeling. Bruce Greenwood has a delightfully smarmy turn as the head of the robotics conglomerate, but it's a bait-and-switch, as he disappears much earlier than he should.

The ultimate failure of I, Robot is that it has no idea where to go with its central premise of robots-in-revolution. Are they slaves who are rightfully rebelling, or villains that must be destroyed? The script-by-committee never makes up its mind, either about this or Smith's role in the plot. And there's even one key line that's an equal parts out-of-nowhere and extremely unsubtle shot at George W. Bush, even though it's next to impossible to read the film in any way as an anti-Bush critique.