Review of Bicentennial Man (1999) by Sebastianali — 31 Aug 2022

Bicentennial Man is a film that, while original and emotional, fails to fully convince me. Many topics are successfully touched on, and the movie, although it becomes longer than it should, makes up for it with a very good transition from the robot to the human, which is reflected in Andrew in his way of thinking and feeling. Very few robot movies really try to give one human feelings and feel like one, without it feeling weird. Unfortunately, all these ideas that could be great at first, are scattered on the ground. There are too many dubious things put in to cause emotion in the viewer in a very forced way, including the ending in which they decide to consider Andrew a human and therefore all the corresponding rights, despite the fact that there are several things in terms of biology that Andrew has forgotten, or even his way of acting on certain occasions. It is also very strange that it took him so many years to find other robots of his "brand", when with all the technology in the world he surely could find a means of transportation that is fast enough. In addition to the fact that it is also not logical that Rupert Burns, who is the one who helps him with the experiments to make him more human, out of nowhere learns to do the blood change to make him age or the fact that he can feel, despite the fact that it was Andrew who made all his experiments possible.

As for more minor things, I must mention the poor special effects, which have not aged very well. Matrix, released the same year, also science fiction, is much more credible.

Overall, it's a very good movie but with quite a few flaws. As a robot movie that tries to be emotional thanks to its attempt at humanization, it achieves it in an almost excellent way. But as a movie about a robot that learns little by little, other movies like The Iron Giant did a much better job.