Review of Robot & Frank (2012) by Mike C — 10 Jan 2014

I probably passed this by a good 50 times, but having watched several movies of late where it was featured in the trailers, I guess something stuck. Probably the idea that the robot would not be used for good I found to be interesting.

Langella is good as a man who is slowly, well, getting old. He's forgetful and barely able to take care of himself. His son brings him this robot...it's the "near future" and it's quite an advanced little guy that can do various household chores on its own and hold a good conversation. If you can suspend your belief about the robot, the movie more or less works.

Frank is an thief and an ex-con and trains the robot to be his sidekick. I thought this was pretty original and fairly well-done. Not like their going after the big stuff. On that note, though, the remodel of the library is pretty ridiculous. The guy doing that is far too easy to hate and thus you basically side with Frank. That's a little manipulative.

Finally, don't think I like the final twist. Not everything has to be a goddamn twist or romance movie. The twist was that the robot that was supposed to help Frank in life ended up helping him in crime. But somewhere along the way someone decided that was not a good enough story. And I'll take a full half start for that!