

BICENTENNIAL MAN
(Touchstone/Columbia)
Starring:  Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz, Sam Neill, Oliver Platt, Hallie
Kate Eisenberg, Kiersten Warren, Wendy Crewson.
Screenplay:  Nicholas Kazan, based on the short story by Isaac Asimov and
the novel _The Positronic Man_ by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg.
Producers:  Wolfgang Petersen, Gail Katz, Neal Miller, Lawrence Mark,
Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe and Michael Barnathan.
Director:  Chris Columbus.
MPAA Rating:  PG (profanity, adult themes)
Running Time:  132 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

     And so Robin Williams' career has come full circle. Twenty years ago,
his celebrity was insured when he played an innocent to the ways of
humanity, drawing sit-com laughs from his literalist misunderstanding of
idioms and his awkward attempts at humor, before ending the story with a
speech to tell us everything he has learned. In BICENTENNIAL MAN,
Williams plays an innocent to the ways of humanity, drawing sit-com laughs
from his literalist misunderstanding of idioms and ... well, you get the
idea. After two decades of box office success and an Academy Award, it
has come to this: Robin Williams is playing Mork again.

     I'm sure Williams would not see things that way. He would doubtless
inform us that his is a complex and challenging character, a domestic
robot called Andrew serving the Martin family of Northern California. He
would explain that the relationships were rich -- the mentor/student
connection between Andrew and Martin patriarch Richard (Sam Neill); the
gentle affection between Andrew and the Martin's youngest daughter, whom
he calls Little Miss (Hallie Kate Eisenberg); the more profound affection
between Andrew and the grown up Little Miss (Embeth Davidtz). He would
describe a robust character arc, in which Andrew comes to exhibit
creativity and feeling, and begins a life-long quest to become more human.
He might even acknowledge the comic relief value of Oliver Platt as 
eccentric robotics scientist Rupert Burns, and Kiersten Warren as the
perky female robot Galatea.

     All of that might have been true in some incarnation of the story,
based on two short stories by Isaac Asimov, the father of the
robot-in-existential crisis concept. This incarnation, however, is
directed by Chris Columbus, whose contributions to deep-thinking Western
cinema include HOME ALONE, HOME ALONE 2 and NINE MONTHS. He's an
unapologetic crowd-pleaser as a director, but a crowd-pleaser in the most
irritating of ways. His is a style that favors low-brow gags and gee-whiz
pacing, then feigns depth by wrapping things up with sentimental
message-mongering (and, in this particular case, three -- count them,
_three_ -- death bed scenes). BICENTENNIAL MAN doesn't even manage the
gee-whiz pacing; after a moderately promising start, the film drifts into
two hours of Andrew growing ever more pensive about his place in the
world. 

     Such pensiveness is likely meant to allow Robin Williams an uplifting
acting showcase (at least once Andrew sheds his metal casing for Williams'
human face). Williams has seemed inordinately fond of uplifting acting
showcases lately, eschewing straight-ahead comedy for roles like PATCH
ADAMS, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME and JAKOB THE LIAR. Unfortunately, he's not
doing himself any favors in his choices of material, heading for parts
that allow him to do plenty of emoting between gags. There's no gravity to
Williams' performance as Andrew, none of the conflicted pain of a being
coming to terms with its own consciousness and its isolation in the world.
That's because he's being directed by Chris Columbus, for whom gravity is
just the thing that keeps his films from floating away entirely. When
BICENTENNIAL MAN sticks to light comedy, it's not half bad. When it takes
its epic scope too seriously, it's more than half bad.

     BICENTENNIAL MAN does boast solid work from its supporting cast of
Davidtz, Neill and particularly Platt (for my money, now the most reliable
comic actor in film). The technical credits are top-notch, with one wild
scene in which Platt molds artificial flesh into Williams' face. There's
even the chance to consider possible metaphors in Andrew's desire to be
legally recognized as a human to marry the woman he loves (advocacy for
"non-traditional" marriage?). There's also plenty of opportunity to watch
the film grow ponderous in the long stretches between laughs, and to
consider how stale Robin Williams' once-promising career has become. The
man who stepped lightly from broad comedy to DEAD POETS SOCIETY and THE
FISHER KING has spent the last year in reverse. BICENTENNIAL MAN's few
simple pleasures can't make up for its shallow philosophizing -- or the
sense that, for Robin Williams, everything old is nanoo again.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 I, shazbots:  5.

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