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Bicentennial Man (13-Dec-1999)
Director: Chris Columbus Writer: Nicholas Kazan From short story: The Bicentennial Man by Isaac Asimov Keywords: Sci-Fi A businessman buys his family an android servant, though unlike androids owned by other families, somehow "Andrew" is creative and adopts human characteristics, mannerisms, and emotions. Starting as a predictable fish-out-of-water comedy, progresses as Andrew seeks to learn what it means to be human, earn acceptance from others, and become legally recognized as human. Hobbled by a clumsy screenplay. Received an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup.
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REVIEWS Review by Walter Frith (posted on 9-Jun-2007) 'Bicentennial
Man' is a test for ourselves and our attitudes. It is a test aimed at
our degree of cynicism. How, in the age of ever increasing resentment
towards many things social, can we ever like a film that reaches out
and asks us to look at the world through the eyes of a machine? Not to
draw a direct comparison, but 'Bicentennial Man' had that strange
flavour a la 'Forrest Gump' where the world is viewed sometimes in a
misunderstood way by those unfamiliar with its realities. What
'Bicentennial Man' does is it takes this premise one step forward and
instead of using human eyes, the eyes and functions of a robot get to
see it for two hundred years. Oh, how many of us would like to see the
world two centuries from now. A cure for cancer? AIDS? Gasoline in
cars? A cashless society? People living on other planets? Day trips to
the moon? The next two top 100 lists from the American Film Institute
of the greatest films of their given century? Seriously, 'Bicentennial
Man' mixes elements of innocence and technology nicely to give the film
a smooth texture and never tries to answer questions of society's
progress a whole lot but concentrates on how one entity progresses and
watches those around him go from one generation to the next. Chris
Columbus is an interesting director. If he had been around twenty five
or thirty years ago, I can see him having directed a lot of Disney 'B'
fare. Perhaps those rascally 'Herbie the Love Bug' films or those
cheesy but entertaining films with a young Kurt Russell. You know, 'The
Strongest Man in the World', 'The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes', and 'Now
You See Him, Now You Don't' to name a few. In this generation, Columbus
has made the first two 'Home Alone' movies, a gem of a forgotten movie,
'Only the Lonely' with the late great John Candy, 'Mrs. Doubtfire' and
a real sappy letdown entitled 'Stepmom' which was a film better suited
for the likes of Garry Marshall. Beginning in the year 2005, Robin
Williams is the voice of a robot named Andrew brought home to a family
by the patriarch whom Andrew refers to as 'Sir' (Sam Neill). There is
the lady of the house (Wendy Crewson) and, of course, you have to have
children in a Chris Columbus movie. The youngest daughter, Little Miss
(Hallie Kate Eisenberg) is the focus of Andrew's curiosity as he tries
to learn about human behaviour. One day after a slight malfunction, Sir
takes Andrew to be repaired. His strange, human like attributes are
explained to the manufacturer (he would love to manufacture many
Andrews like this), but Sir makes Andrew tamper proof and many years
later, Andrew runs into Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt), the manufacturer's
successor, who is also a relative, and slowly, Andrew is given body
parts that make him more and more human. All the while, Andrew remains
faithful to Little Miss, now a grown woman (Embeth Davidtz). Williams
makes his debut in the movie about forty five minutes into the film as
a human like character and his presence is a welcomed one as he
continues his journey and has many visions of life in the two hundred
years that he lives. Chris Columbus keeps the film on target and
maintains a low key approach to the material. It feels like a quiet
evening spent at home with family and/or friends doing something docile
like playing cards, reading poetry or playing a board game. The film
has no loud explosions, foul language, major bursts of emotion and is
good family material most of the time. The film is based on the short
story by Issac Asimov and the novel 'The Positronic Man' by Issac
Asimov and Robert Silverburg with a screenplay written for the screen
by Nicholas Kazan ('Reversal of Fortune'). Kazan brings up memories of
some very familiar films such as 'Forrest Gump', as I mentioned
earlier, Woody Allen's 'Sleeper' and a few other films that you can see
for yourself. This hurts the film somewhat but the direction it dec
ides to take compensates for this somewhat. When Robin Williams first
landed in movies back in the late seventies and early eighties, I never
thought he would elevate himself to the position he has today. An Oscar
winning actor with an impressive list of important social films like
'The Fisher King', 'Dead Poets Society' and 'Good Will Hunting'. He
makes films for the serious, the not so serious and the downright
whimsical. Even a guest spot of television's 'Homicide' is something
over looked by a lot of people as the measure of just how good Robin
Williams can be. With the success of 'Apollo 13', Tom Hanks went on to
involve himself with a study of the space program with the series
entitled 'From the Earth to the Moon'. I would like to see Robin
Williams dive into something close to his heart. Perhaps host a
documentary of some of pop culture's greatest comedians or star in a
bio pick of a real life comedian, something that would gain him even
more respect than he's already earned from playing real life characters
in films like 'Patch Adams' and 'Awakenings'. Visit FILM FOLLOW-UP by
Walter Frith
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