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A sentimental, often awkward sci-fi fable with a very strong Robin Williams performance at its center. It’s earnest and occasionally moving, but the tone is broad, the pacing is sluggish, and the film’s ideas about humanity, love, and identity can feel blunt or dated.
Where to watch: Buy
Fri · 2h 11m
Director: Chris Columbus
Starring: Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz, Sam Neill
Richard Martin buys a gift, a new NDR-114 robot. The product is named Andrew by the youngest of the family's children. "Bicentennial Man" follows the life and times of Andrew, a robot purchased as a household appliance programmed to perform menial tasks. As Andrew begins to experience emotions and creative thought, the Martin family soon discovers they don't have an ordinary robot.
Chris Columbus
Robin Williams, Embeth Davidtz, Sam Neill
A sentimental, often awkward sci-fi fable with a very strong Robin Williams performance at its center. It’s earnest and occasionally moving, but the tone is broad, the pacing is sluggish, and the film’s ideas about humanity, love, and identity can feel blunt or dated.
Bicentennial Man is one of those big, sincere studio movies that seems almost embarrassed by its own feelings, then keeps feeling them anyway. Robin Williams gives Andrew a gentle, curious soul, and that performance does a lot of heavy lifting whenever the script turns clumsy or overexplains its themes. The film’s best moments come from its simple wonder: a machine learning to make art, to love, and to ask what it means to be alive.
At the same time, the movie is uneven in a way that’s hard to ignore. It stretches a fairly elegant premise across a very long runtime, and the tonal blend of family comedy, romance, and melancholy can feel messy. Some of the emotional beats land because Williams is so disarming; others feel like they belong to a different, more old-fashioned movie.
If you’re open to a sentimental sci-fi fable, there’s enough warmth and sincerity here to make it worthwhile. If you want your robot stories sleek, subtle, or intellectually sharp, this is probably going to feel like a well-meaning relic.
russman (2★) · 867 likes
I started watching this in 2015. It is now 2215.
Will (2.5★) · 755 likes
I don’t think there are any other actors that I miss more than Robin Williams.
monk (4.5★) · 593 likes
Why do so many not like this movie. I seriously don’t understand.
Caleb (2.5★) · 496 likes
A robot’s 200 year quest to become a dildo.
Hirsch (1.5★) · 428 likes
haven't even seen him kiss a dude. misleading title
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artificial intelligence, humanity and personhood, immortality, love and family, art and creativity, identity and selfhood, sentimentality, coming-of-age
science fiction, drama, romance, sentimental, late-90s, family-friendly, AI, existential, melancholic, studio fantasy