IN 1950, the high priest of science fiction, Isaac Asimov, wrote three rules that are still regarded as the genre’s most persuasive claim to philosophical status.

At the age of 30 he predicted an apocalyptic power struggle between machines and mankind in a series of short stories entitled I, Robot. His electronic commandments are now so familiar that they have lost any prick of originality: “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”

Asimov was one of the first writers to explore the existential crisis of robots (see feature), and the sizeable joy of Alex Proyas’s new film is that timeless fascination about where to draw the line — terribly difficult in the money-making circumstances.

I, Robot is a B-movie blast about power and greed starring a cop played by Will Smith and a rogue cyborg called Sonny. The year is 2035, the place Chicago, and a hell of a lot of cash has been ploughed into the scenery.

Well, actually, into the middle-class view of the scenery. They are chronically dependent on skeletal robots. They use robots like public conveniences. The robots post letters, chop the onions and wipe Elspeth’s bottom. You can buy these tin slaves in Tesco and bin them at Boots. They are a luxury that Detective Smith can’t stand.

Smith is basically Shaft, a black cop who wears lots of leather, earrings, a Mike Tyson gait, an ancient grudge and a face that says: “I can’t stand people’s unquestioning faith in robots.”

When he’s not being ticked off by his lumpy chief, he poses in the nude in the shower being, well, Will Smith, angrily soaping himself to tasteful music. His nemesis is a blue-eyed android (Alan Tudyk) who may or may not be guilty of murder, except that robots are theoretically incapable of premeditated violence, and feelings, and aches, and loneliness, and pain, and love.

The corporate slime is a computer company that wants to populate the planet with millions of super-improved droids. The mystery is: who killed Will Smith’s childhood mentor, the inventor of this new generation of Stepford cyborgs.

Very neat, but also disappointingly obvious. There are tingling moments of self-doubt for maverick robot and rogue cop. I just couldn’t bother to work out whose crisis felt more real. Most of these 2035 fairground pleaures are all too familiar to the 108 million stunt drivers in the middle lane of the M25. Swat teams are two a penny, and heroes have a licence to splatter everyone in central casting.

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