This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.
Mr. Personality he is not.
Plot Overview
After a defenestration mishap,
Android Andrew (Robin Williams) the Martin
family's new NDR 114 robot displays anomalous behavior.
NorthAm Robotics' CEO Dennis Mansky (Stephen Root) wants to have
it rebuilt to avoid bad publicity, but its owner Richard Martin
(Sam Neill) opts instead to retrain it.
Over the
course of decades—which turn into centuries—and with
the help of a couple mad scientists, Andrew goes from being a
household appliance, to a master clock maker, to a one-time
usher, to a freeman, to a searcher, to an investor, to an
android, to a biological, to an (anatomically) “complete
man.” The plot kind of sinks into the gutter at this point.
Prolific pagan penman Isaac Asimov, on whose short story TBM rests, seems to have modeled it on the development of a Greek god over eons. Author Peter Mountford writes:
In Greek, Thanatos was a minor deity who embodied death itself. Son of Nyx (night) and Erebos (darkness), he was a taker of souls, and a prototype of Lucifer. He dwelled in the underworld. While he lurked mainly in the background of Greek myth, usually in the company of his twin, the god of sleep, his presence—and relevance—has endured through history.
Later, the Romans depicted him as a benevolent winged child, not unlike Cupid, who would swoop to usher people to peaceful deaths. This temporary gilding of his reputation did not last, however.
To Freudians, Thanatos was the opposite of Eros. And although Freud himself never used the word “Thanatos,” he identified its future concept concisely when he described “a diversion inwards of aggression.” Later, Freud amended his assessment and came to see that the aggression in question was more often directed outward, pointed out at the world.
From the same root we get “thanatology,” the academic study of death among human beings. We also get the word “euthanasia,” for when a person, recognizing that their life has run its course, embraces death gladly. (243)
Andrew starts out
sleeping in the basement where he plugs himself in to
recharge at night. Having survived two assassination attempts by
the children, he gets jumped ahead by years to witness the peaceful
demise of family members as they've aged obsolete. He becomes
fascinated with eroticism. He'd been programmed to be docile, so he
has to be taught aggression to mimic humans. At the end he needs to
become mortal to be human. It's a Pyrrhic victory.
He wants to get married
to Portia the adult granddaughter of long ago 7 yrs. old “Little Miss” Amanda
Martin (Hallie Kate Eisenberg) of his original family. Can it
be done? For a proper definition of marriage, I'll quote Dr. Ide: “The
Contemporary Christian standard was defined not
by the bible but generated by Roman law as defined by the
jurist Modestinus who argued that marriage was ‘consortium omnis vitae,
divini et humani iuris communicatio: a life-long
partnership, and a sharing of civil and religious
rights’” (83–5). As a kid Amanda liked her toys:
a horse figurine & a stuffed dog. Her doppelgänger
Portia comes to like Andrew and can be persuaded to love him.
Andrew now has a central nervous system, so he can love her back.
The World Court might be persuaded to grant them marriage equality
to wed as hetero humans do who love each other. He does not consult
the church on this “next step.”
Human hetero couples would proceed to
matrimony instead of marriage per se. The word matrimony
derives from the Latin mater meaning mother, and monium meaning the state of,
matrimony in the Catholic catechism being the state in which a
woman is permitted to enter motherhood. The word
marriage doesn't even appear in the catechism, although
we use it as a synonym when applied to human opposite sexes so
united—see 1Cor. 7:2.
Since Andrew has no sperm, church permission for motherhood is
a moot point but could be made into a joke: “Julius Caesar
walks into a bar. Tells the bartender, ‘I'll have a
martinus.’ Bartender says, ‘Don't you mean a
martini?’ And Caesar says, ‘If I wanted a double, I'd
ask for it!’” (Bill Scheft 17.)
Ideology
Source material creator Isaac Asimov has proposed a kind of
corporate marriage. Since it costs a company a lot to move a whole
family whenever the man of the house gets promoted &
transferred, Asimov suggests the wifey and kiddies be company
fixtures. The man moves cities, say, and he's got his whole new
family awaiting him, whose prior husband has been bumped.
Strangely, the Bible has a custom somewhat
similar. (Exodus 21:2-4) “If thou
buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he
shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he
shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife
shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she
have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be
her master's, and he shall go out by himself.” The servant's
wife stays with the master when he's set free, if in fact it was
the master who provided her in the first place. The New Testament confirms
this practice. (1Cor. 7:21) “Art
thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made
free, use it rather.” If a convert is a servant, he's not to get
all bent out of shape (“care not for it.”) But if and when he's
set free, he should go for it even if it means leaving the master-provided
wife behind. This is the church perspective, not the state's which has a
rather dim view of slavery to begin with. Liberator Lincoln never belonged
to any church, and the locals considered him an infidel with an idolatrous
regard for consent of the people. Southerners may be more sympathetic than
the Yanks to these Bible passages.
In this movie the robot inventor's son Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt) has an incredibly irritating female bot Galatea (Kiersten Warren.) After he humanizes Andrew, he turns his attention to his own needs and works his magic on this robot maidservant, and she becomes his wife. Galatea, however, is “uncooperative, abusive, and confrontational.” She obtains her liberty, becomes a nurse prim and proper, and leaves him behind. I don't think he involved the government.
Production Values
“” (1999) was directed by Chris Columbus. Its screenplay was written by Robert Silverberg and Nicholas Kazan, based on the novel, The Positronic Man by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg. It stars Robin Williams, Sam Neill, Wendy Crewson, Embeth Davidtz, and Oliver Platt. The actors and child actors were fine in non-challenging—dare I say stiff?—roles. Some of them played the piano and danced.
MPA rated it PG for language and some sexual
content. The sci-fi sets were evocative enough but not totally
immersive. The Martin family's recreation included reading,
(California) beach excursions and chess games—played with
tactics more than strategy. At least the boob tube was nowhere to
be seen. Makeup, costumes, and special effects pulled their weight.
There was occasional humor to keep the audience awake. Runtime is
a trim 2¼ hours.
Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation
Isaac Asimov was a favorite sci-fi author of mine when I was a boy, but I eventually outgrew him. Yet, his three laws of robotics still portend something going seriously wrong despite best intentions. Church architecture & statuary is prominent here with little or no practical application. Don't expect Asimov's material to be Christian. I don't think this one will give you nightmares unless you are on the brink of a questionable marriage. If your intended has doubts, go see something else.
Movie Ratings
Action Factor: Weak action scenes. Suitability for children: Suitable for children with guidance. Special effects: Well done special effects. Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day. Suspense: Predictable. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.
Works Cited
Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769. Software.
Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.
Mountford, Peter. The Dismal Science. Copyright © 2014 by Peter Mountford. Portland, Oregon and Brooklyn, New York: Tin House Books, First U.S. edition 2014. Print.
Scheft, Bill. The Ringer. Copyright © 2002 by Bill Scheft. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. first edition. Print.
bibles.n7nz.org