The premise of Robots showed promise. In the near future, humanoid robots have taken most of the jobs but its illegal to own a realistic robot. Jack Whitehall plays a guy who owns one that he sends out on dates with woman… the boring part of the relationship. Once the bot is about to seal the deal, he takes over. Shailene Woodley plays his next conquest but unfortunately for him, she secretly owns her own replicant robot.

This is a light little romantic comedy sci-fi story (based on what I’m guessing was a more serious sci-fi short by Robert Scheckley). It starts well with some fun (if necessarily icky) ideas and scenarios. But it never finds much satisfying to do with its ideas.

The male lead is a real douchebag and he plays it remarkably well… to well for purposes of a convincing rom-com. If you’re a diehard Shailene Woodley fan, you’ll enjoy her street wise cynical performance.

Unfortunately, once the humans actually have to spend time together, the flick falls apart. The two have no chemistry and he never stops being an asshole. I had no emotional investment in them together which makes for a pretty flat and unconvincing romance.

This is a lightweight puff of a movie that teetered on the edge of being decent. There’s some decent comic writing but it didn’t find a good direction to go once the plot reveals itself. And not having a good human connection in the middle of a robot rom-com was something they couldn’t plot their way out of anyway.

Score: 72