SimonJack "Bicentennial Man" received an Oscar nomination for makeup, and that certainly was deserved. The costuming for Robin Williams as the robot, Andrew Martin, is quite exceptional. But that's about all that I found interesting in this film. The script is slow to the point that many in the Martin family seem to pause to think about what they are going to say next. That makes the acting seem weak, especially with Sam Neill. The effort to make Richard Martin and others appear to be very thoughtful instead drags the action out. And the film drags on and on. The plot is not original, although it develops the theme further than earlier sci-fi films. Still, the idea of a robot becoming human just escapes me because it defies all logic and science. So, for some, this may be an enjoyable film as science fiction in which a robot reaches near that point. It tries very hard to grab the audience by tugging at their heartstrings with emotional scenes.Some strange things about this film got my attention. First was the math the writers used and the ages of the characters. The robot, Andrew was made in 2005. He lived for 200 years. Little Miss was about five or six in 2005. But her granddaughter, Portia, is Andrew's love many years later. When Andrew dies at 200, Portia is about 80. That means that there were about 65 years between the generations and thus, the average ages at which each person in the link conceived the next person. So, Little Miss would have been 60 to 65 when she gave birth to Portia's mother or father, who in turn would have been 60 to 65 when Portia was born. And, if Portia was alive as a young girl when Little Miss died, Little Miss would have been more than 125 years old.The second strange thing is the portrayal of the space age vehicles early in the film - by the time Richard Martin dies. Figuring him for another 45 years after 2005, that would mean we will be flying our space cars by 2050. It's sci-fi, of course, but does anyone think that such space travel will be likely by then-or even another century or more after this? Man landed on the moon in 1969, but in nearly five decades since then, our space abilities have been limited to global satellites and unmanned deep space probes. The first progressive sci-fi films had us shuttling between homes and offices as shown in this film, by about 2010, as I recall. We are still decades, if not centuries, off the Space Odyssey projected for 2001 by the 1968 movie.

dmichelson-01609 This is an excellent movie. It didn't follow Asimov's story, but it went in the same direction. The actors were superb and affecting in their roles. Robin, Embeth and Sam (to be familiar and brief) nailed their parts and had me believing in their characters. Oliver Platt was also excellent as the robot/android scientist. It's one of my favorite movies however... Two regrets: 1- This movie is STILL not on BluRay! AI finally came out in that format, but if you want to see this movie in hi def you have to stream it. 2- The soundtrack has James Horner's background music and beautiful "You Look at Me" w/ Celine Dion but hot the other popular songs covered by other artists. They were done beautifully as well and should have been included. I don't understand the problem with studios not catering to the likes of audiences instead of their own legal and profit-driven short-sighted interests. They'd make more profits if they aligned their products with the public's likes instead of their own statistics or industrial expectations. Nevertheless, this is a great movie and one of Robin Williams' best. It's also true SF, not SciFi, which is monster and space battle driven. SF is idea driven.

KAWAII PrInCeSsr Overall, good film. Definitely recommend it. Especially if you're willing to watch a movie with the family. They have shown some good points that we can definitely learn from. But I'm afraid it's way too long. After watching halfway through, you'll definitely feel exhausted and bored. As at the end, the plot may become too overwhelming. Like they only made it longer just for the sake of having a longer film to produce.

algorait Nice try, but since I am huge fan of Dr Asimov, I can't help but judge. The love story infused with the movie is understandable, yet brings down the phenomenal story to just a regular movie. Andrew was never portrayed as the true leader scientist he became and that he could defy the second law using pure logic. What really threw me off was the second to last sentence of the movie. This is an order, which is a complete disobedience of the First law of robotics. If you are improvising and adding extra extra stories please at least have the courtesy of following the ever first sentence of every Isaac Asimov's robotics book. "A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm."