Product Description

The Martin family purchased Andrew, an android, they soon discover that he is one extraordinary droid.
Genre: Feature Film-Comedy
Rating: PG
Release Date: 6-MAY-2003
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4699 in DVD
• Brand: WILLIAMS,ROBIN
• Released on: 2000-06-13
• Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 131 minutes

Amazon.com
Bicentennial Man was stung at the 1999 box office, due no doubt in part to poor timing during a backlash against Robin Williams and his treacly performances in two other, then-recent releases, Jakob the Liar and Patch Adams. But this near-approximation of a science fiction epic, based on works by Isaac Asimov and directed, with uncharacteristic seriousness of purpose, by Chris Columbus (Mrs. Doubtfire), is much better than one would have known from the knee-jerk negativity and box-office indifference.

Williams plays Andrew, a robot programmed for domestic chores and sold to an upper-middle-class family, the Martins, in the year 2005. The family patriarch (Sam Neill) recognizes and encourages Andrew's uncommon characteristics, particularly his artistic streak, sensitivity to beauty, humor, and independence of spirit. In so doing, he sets Williams's tin man on a two-century journey to become more human than most human beings.

As adapted by screenwriter Nicholas Kazan, the movie's scale is novelistic, though Columbus isn't the man to embrace with Spielbergian confidence its sweeping possibilities. Instead, the Home Alone director shakes off his familiar tendencies to pander and matures, finally, as a captivating storyteller. But what really makes this film matter is its undercurrent of deep yearning, the passion of Andrew as a convert to the human race and his willingness to sacrifice all to give and take love. Williams rises to an atypical challenge here as a futuristic Everyman, relying, perhaps for the first time, on his considerable iconic value to make the point that becoming human means becoming more like Robin Williams. Nothing wrong with that. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

OVERDONE AS USUAL!
WHAT BEGINS AS INTERESTING, A ROBOTIC HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCE EXPRESSING HUMAN EMOTION, BECOMES THE RE-TELLING OF THE STORY OF PINOCCHIO, WITH A TWIST. OVERDONE AND CHILDISH...SO TYPICAL OF HOLLYWOOD.

I Enjoyed the Bicentennial Man
Bicentennial Man was a very enjoyable four star film for me. It contained comedy, drama and morality messages all in a sci-fi film setting. This film had wonderful mechanical effects. However, I enjoyed it first and foremost because of Robin Williams and don't understand what those 1 and 2 star rating people were complaining about. Robin Williams worked very hard at his performance and I think brought out qualities in Andrew that no one else could have. I think all the special effects were beautifully done and the musical score was exquisite. Frankly, this helped get me through some of the few more drawn out portions of the film.

This is another in a long string of Hollywood robot films that quoted Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, although it didn't seem to invoke any of them too heavily in any of the plot developments. Several of the film messages are lost on me and I don't quite know what the writer was trying to say about marriage and sex defining humanity. Perhaps he wasn't saying any more about life than "let's try to enjoy the ride".

I loved the scene in which the option of becoming "a complete man" was presented to Andrew by the robot maker and thought it was handled very well. I do know that when Andrew wished to be "more human" by being made mortal, I agreed with the robot maker. He felt that Andrew was definitely becoming more human because he was making one huge mistake.

It is clear to me that as long as life is pleasant and not filled with intolerable pain, it is also filled with constant fascination. If I were the writer I would not have permitted Andrew to "check-out", by becoming artificially mortal. Andrew, being above all things sentient and intelligent, should not have wished for death because his "life partner" was dying. In fact, I think he should have tried to convince his partner into extending her life by means of his biological implants. When she eventually died he could have remained behind to glorify her memory, and also could have developed devices to further extend the useful life of people and rendered other great services to humanity.

If there was some great point the writer was trying to make about marriage and sexuality defining humanity I guess I just missed it. Although I count myself as a great fan of both, I really don't think a reasoning robot would permit his "humanity" to have been defined by such a measure or have chosen to abandon useful life and just "check out".

Excellant Family Movie
We all love this movie including my 3 yr old!!
You'll laugh, cry and really think about life in a different way.
LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!! And love Robin Williams too!