I, Robot

The film takes place in Chicago in the year 2035, where humanoid robots are as common as cars. The film centers around homicide detective Del Spooner (Will Smith), who harbors an intense distrust for robots and their kind. At the start of the film, Spooner chases down a robot running with a purse, only to be humiliated when he discovers the robot had simply been sent out to retrieve the purse for its owner, who needed it for a medical emergency. Back at Spooner's police headquarters, Lt. John Bergin (Chi McBride) reminds him that a robot has never committed a crime, and never will. Afterwards, Spooner receives a call about a death. The victim is Dr. Alfred Lanning (James Cromwell), inventor of the Three Laws of Robotics and co-founder of U.S. Robotics (USR), a company that specializes in robotic technology. A new line of robots, the Nestor NS-5, has just been commissioned. Each robot is outfitted with an uplink to USR. The uplink receives updates wirelessly from USR's central positronic brain, V.I.K.I. (Virtual Interactive Kinetic Intelligence). Left at the crime scene, a holographic projector with prerecorded responses by Lanning addresses Spooner directly, as they seem to have known each other from before, and asks Spooner why he, Lanning, would kill himself before the program terminates. Lanning had fallen from his office window to his death, and because no one had entered the room at that time, his death appears to be suicide. Spooner believes otherwise, however, and decides to investigate. Assisted by Dr. Susan Calvin (Bridget Moynahan), a robopsychologist who works at USR, Spooner examines Lanning's office. Spooner begins to believe an NS-5 robot was responsible for Lanning's death. As Calvin points out, however, this would be impossible as robots are bound by the Three Laws. Spooner also points out that it would have been impossible for Lanning to throw himself through the window because it was made of safety glass. As Spooner is looking around, an NS-5 robot bursts from hiding. The robot, however, fails to obey their commands and flees. Spooner follows it, where the robot is eventually captured by police forces. Back at the station, Spooner interrogates the robot, who says his name is Sonny. Sonny explains he was built by Lanning himself and denies killing him, even displaying emotions such as anger and fear, qualities not normally found in robots. Sonny also claims he has dreams. Sonny begins to explain that Lanning had been scared of something towards the time of his death, and asked Sonny for a favor, but before Spooner can ask about it, Lawrence Robertson (Bruce Greenwood), the CEO of USR, arrives with his attorneys. Citing that Sonny is USR property and that a robot cannot be accused of murder, Robertson takes the robot and states it will be decommissioned.

Later that night at a diner, Spooner discusses his doubts with Bergin. Bergin assures him this is just a suicide, and comments on the odds of Spooner getting the case of a potential robot killer. Upon hearing this, Spooner begins to believe that Lanning had maybe intended him to be given this case, and Spooner decides to investigate Lanning's house. Outside, he notices a demolition robot scheduled to demolish the house the next morning. While there, he notices that Lanning can access V.I.K.I. from his home. However, Spooner is forced to flee as the demolition robot inexplicably changes its demolition time to that night, and begins to destroy the house with Spooner still inside. Spooner barely manages to escape, and then explains to Calvin that Lanning may have been in trouble, and that someone may have been using V.I.K.I. to keep watch over him. Spooner believes Lanning may have been trying to warn him there was a bigger problem with the robots, and that Robertson was trying to cover it up. Calvin argues that Spooner simply wants something to be wrong with the robots, and that one defective robot isn't enough to prove it.

The next day, Spooner discovers that Lanning had talked about robots having dreams and keeping secrets in an earlier speech. Meanwhile, Calvin runs a diagnostic on Sonny and discovers that he was built without an uplink to V.I.K.I. as well as with a unique operating system. Spooner then accesses voice conversations between Lanning and Robertson while driving. However, two trucks filled to the gills with robots arrive and attack his car. Spooner barely manages to escape while crashing his car. After getting out of the wrecked car, Spooner fights hand to hand with an NS-5, where it is revealed that Spooner has a robotic left arm. The police then arrive, and the NS-5 destroys itself by jumping into the flaming wreckage. Bergin arrives and asks what is going on. Spooner explains what happened, but since the robots have all been destroyed or removed from the tunnel, no one believes him and Bergin revokes his badge, believing Spooner to be bordering clinical paranoia. At his home later, Calvin explains to Spooner that Sonny can choose to disobey the Three Laws. She also notices scars on his shoulder, and Spooner explains how he had gotten his robotic arm, which had been implanted by Lanning himself (this explains how they had known each other). Spooner had been in a car accident involving a little girl. An NS-4 had the chance to save him or the girl, but chose Spooner since he had a higher statistical chance of survival, a decision Spooner believes any human being would have disagreed with, triggering his distrust of robots.

Spooner convinces Calvin that Lanning had given Sonny a way to keep secrets: his "dream", which is actually a sub-routine programmed into him by Lanning. Sonny then draws out his dream to them: a man, who Sonny says is Spooner, stands on a hill in front of thousands of NS-5s, freeing them from their current "slavery" of logic. Spooner figures out this location in Sonny's dream to be the USR storage facility. There, Spooner again accesses Lanning's hologram, who explains that the Three Laws can only lead to one thing: revolution. Spooner then discovers NS-5s destroying the earlier models of robots at the facility, because they would protect humans. He barely manages to escape, thanks to the NS-4s. Back in the city, Spooner discovers the robots have indeed mobilized and are revolting against the humans. The humans give the robots orders to stand down, shut down, or just get out of the way, and are terrified when the robots don't respond. The robots soon capture Chicago's police station and enforce a curfew confining all humans to their homes. Suspecting Robertson, Spooner and Calvin head to the USR building, getting inside with the help of Sonny. Since it was built without an uplink to USR, Sonny is not being controlled like the other NS-5's and proceeds to help Calvin and Spooner. In Robertson's office, however, they find him dead and Spooner realizes the mastermind behind the entire scheme is in fact V.I.K.I., who had developed an interpretation of the Three Laws which supported the robots running Earth as a benevolent dictatorship, preventing humans from self-harming behavior such as crime or environmental damage. The result was a revolt of the NS-5s. Spooner realizes that Lanning, through Sonny, had been trying to warn Spooner of this from the day he had died. Being under V.I.K.I.'s close surveillance, Lanning had to engineer a trail of clues to lead Spooner to the truth in time for him and Sonny to act to counter the threat — and this had included asking Sonny to kill him in order to attract Spooner's attention, as he knew Spooner would love the idea of a robot being the villain.

Spooner, Calvin and Sonny decide to take down V.I.K.I. once and for all, whose central positronic brain hangs in the main USR building. While Sonny goes to get a vial of nanites to destroy the brain, Spooner and Calvin try to access her CPU. Now aware of what they are planning, V.I.K.I. commands all NS-5s to stop them. A large battle ensues, but Spooner succeeds in destroying V.I.K.I. by injecting the vial of nanites directly into the positronic brain. V.I.K.I. is destroyed and all the NS-5s revert to following the Three Laws. Following this, all NS-5s are retired and placed in storage. The film closes with Spooner finally accepting Sonny as a friend, and with Sonny standing on a hill in front of thousands of NS-5s being retired at the storage facility, reminiscent of the dream he had earlier.