Bicentennial Man (1999)
Bicentennial Man is science fiction for people that don’t like science fiction, don’t understand what robots are, and don’t want to be challenged. It teases many thought-provoking topics and then barely scratches the surface on any of them. Why dig deep when it can instead rely on clichés and cheap tricks?
In 2005, the Martin family home is introduced to their new robot helper, "Andrew" (played by Robin Williams). Somehow, a defect in Andrew’s programming allows him to innovate, learn, and evolve. As the years pass, Andrew becomes much more than a household appliance and embarks on a journey to become human.
You'd assume the film would ask questions like “What makes a human human?”, that to spark deep questions, it would take something decidedly not human and give it the ability to feel. That sounds hard, so what if - instead of a robot - Andrew was a silver man, complete with eyebrows and facial expressions? You instantly know he's going to gain sentience and will develop a Pinocchio complex. Whew. Can you imagine if Andrew was wholly inhuman, like a grey box on wheels claiming it wanted to be considered our equal? That might've been hard.
The film fails from the beginning by introducing two stories, neither of which it commits to. The first is the love story between Andrew and the Martin family. The second is the robot's quest for humanity. Does that first element add anything to this 200-year-plus tale? No, but how else will the dummies in the audience understand that he's human if he can't have sex with a woman? The android can enjoy music, make friends, create art, and eventually becomes indistinguishable from a human due to extensive upgrades. It’s just a cheap trick.
This picture forces its conflicts. You listen to the arguments used by the World Congress for why Andrew can't attain "man" status and it holds no water. Bicentennial Man doesn't even try to expose the prejudices of human beings towards different classes or races. No one could leave the film upset or wondering how they'd react in this scenario because Bicentennial Man never actually explores the real difference between man and machine. The reason I don’t consider my computer to be a human being isn’t that it’s made of plastic and metal, or that it doesn’t need to eat or go to the bathroom. It’s not about it being built instead of born, it’s about the fact that my computer can’t think or create original ideas. It can’t relate to human emotions because it’s a machine. The people in this movie would disagree with me. It’s not an injustice, it’s just bad writing.
That's all sci-fi stuff. These sort of questions probably won't occur to most viewers. Even so, this movie isn't great. Bicentennial Man is a drama-comedy, but the drama is manufactured and crumbles under scrutiny. The comedy? it’s lame. Andrew is shocked when he hears about how humans reproduce - like that's never been done before. Predictably, we also get the usual jokes about him not understanding humor, turns of phrases, or human emotions. We've seen that a thousand times.
The love story is banal. Not only because there's no chemistry between the leads but also because you can see every development coming from a mile away. The social stigmas they must "overcome" are shallow, the physical differences non-existent. We never see what this case does to the world, or how other robots react to it there are hardly any robots in this movie.
The worst thing about Bicentennial Man is that it's not immediately bad. It sucks you in with obvious injustices, what appears to be a torn romance, and a man's quest to be declared human. There's even a poor lonely dog that wants to be adopted. It's so cheesy and earnest most will think it deep. Give Bicentennial Man a long hard look and you’ll recognize it for what it is: countless missed opportunities. (On DVD, March 25, 2016)
