BICENTENNIAL MAN A film review by Steve Rhodes Copyright 1999 Steve Rhodes RATING (0 TO ****): ***
MRS. DOUBTFIRE's director (Chris Columbus) and star (Robin Williams) team up again in BICENTENNIAL MAN with magical results. The movie tells the poignant story of the 200-year-long life and times of a model NDR-114 robot named Andrew Martin (Williams). Although frequently quite funny, the film rarely goes for the cheap laughs. Most of the surprisingly serious story focuses on exactly what it means to be human and on what is important in life. There are some impressive special effects, but the picture is more a charming character study than a futuristic adventure.
If you've seen the trailers, you probably think of the film as slightly slapstick. It turns out, however, to be much more substantial and moving that you would suspect. The downside to this is that, despite its mild PG rating, the story isn't for kids who aren't able to handle the death of loved ones on the screen. Key characters die naturally and peacefully of old age, but they do pass away -- a fact upon which the story dwells. The result is either meaningfully touching or depressingly sad. Adults and teens will mostly be in the former category, but younger ones may be completely turned off. As the 10-year-olds with us explained, it's one thing to witness a dinosaur violently devour people you don't care about, but it's much harder to watch one treasured character after another perish.
Andrew, who refers to himself with the impersonal "one," lives in the Martin household headed by Sir (Sam Neill) and Ma'am (Wendy Crewson). The older daughter is a sassy 10-year-old girl, Miss (Lindze Letherman), and the younger one is a sweet 7-year-old girl, Little Miss (Hallie Kate Eisenberg). Embeth Davidtz (MANSFIELD PARK) plays the grown Little Miss as well as Little Miss's granddaughter, Portia. The star of the production, however, is Nicholas Kazan's script based on an Isaac Asimov story. It's a script that plays simultaneously to the head and to the heart, asking many questions to make the viewers think.
Andrew turns out to be a model NDR-114 like no other. He has artistic abilities, able to make intricate carvings and delicate clocks, and he has "almost" human feelings. The primary question posed by the story is under what circumstances could we remove the word "almost" from the previous sentence.
Sir seizes every opportunity to train Andrew in the ways of humans. The results prove quite comical. Teaching a robot to tell a joke is especially tricky since he tries to dissect the meanings rather than enjoying the spirit of the joke.
In one scene we come in at the end of Sir's birds-and-bees talk with Andrew. A bewildered Andrew stares at Sir in disbelief. "People actually do this, Sir?" he asks. Once convinced that this is not another of Sir's jokes, Andrew inquires as to the typical frequency among married couples.
The story, which is told chronologically, makes several large leaps in time. When we meet the first set of grandkids, one of them dumps sand on Andrew out of pure meanness. Never at a loss for words, he quips, "One understands why some animals eat their young."
At one point in the story, Andrew goes off on a long and hard journey in an attempt to locate other models of his type. He wants to see if any of them were blessed with his gifts. Along the way he comes into contact with a female robot named Galatea (Kiersten Warren), who appears to have his intellect. Alas, she just has her "personality chip" engaged and has about as many brains as a talking Barbie doll. Galatea does provide great fodder for humorous material. Her master is Rupert Burns (Oliver Platt), a robot repairman and inventor, who comes to Andrew's aid.
By the time the 200 years have passed, we have come to realize that the movie isn't really about a robot, per se. It is about love and about the true meaning of life.
BICENTENNIAL MAN runs 2:11. It is rated PG for language and some sexual content. The film would be fine for teenagers. Whether the movie would be appropriate for those under 13, depends on the kid's sensitivity to the issues of dying.
My son Jeffrey, age 10, gave the movie **. He laughed harder than I've ever seen him laugh in a movie, but he complained that he found the deaths "really depressing." His friend Alan, also 10, gave the picture ** 1/2. They had similar comments about the movie. Both were extremely upset over its sadness, and both thought sections of it were hilarious, especially those with Galatea in it.
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
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