Bicentennial Man (1999) Review – A Two-Century Journey Through Existence and the Heart
An emotional illustration inspired by Bicentennial Man — a quiet moment where humanity and artificial life touch through warmth, memory, and light.
๐ฅ Film Overview
Detail | Information |
|---|---|
Title | Bicentennial Man |
Director | Chris Columbus |
Release | December 17, 1999 (USA) |
Runtime | 132 minutes |
Genre | Science Fiction, Drama, Romance |
Screenplay | Nicholas Kazan (based on works by Isaac Asimov and Robert Silverberg) |
Studio | Touchstone Pictures, Columbia Pictures |
Music | James Horner |
Box Office | $87.4 million worldwide ($100 million budget) |
Rating | 6.9/10 (IMDb), 37% (Rotten Tomatoes) |
๐ Plot Summary
In 2005, the Martin family purchases an NDR-114 robot named Andrew to perform household chores. But Andrew is different. He displays curiosity, creativity, and something unexpected—the capacity to feel. When "Little Miss" Amanda Martin asks him to carve a wooden horse, Andrew doesn't simply execute the task—he creates art.
Recognizing Andrew's uniqueness, family patriarch Richard Martin encourages his independence. Over decades, Andrew earns his freedom, amasses wealth through craftsmanship, and embarks on a two-century quest to understand what it means to be human. He acquires artificial organs, synthetic skin, and a face that ages. He falls in love with Portia, Amanda's lookalike granddaughter.
Legal recognition as human eludes him, however. The film spans 200 years, watching generations pass as Andrew remains—learning love, loss, creativity, and ultimately choosing mortality. His journey asks not "How do you become human?" but rather "What does it mean to exist with intention, emotion, and heart?"
๐ธ Key Themes
Existence Beyond Programming
Andrew's journey is less about acquiring human traits and more about embodying the sensation of being. He doesn't just learn emotions—he experiences the trembling vulnerability of feeling them. Love changes him. Loss teaches him. Choice sculpts his identity across centuries.
The film suggests that humanity isn't defined by biology but by consciousness, intention, and the courage to become vulnerable. Andrew seeks not just to function but to exist fully—to create meaning rather than merely execute tasks.
The Mirror of Humanity: Warmth and Coldness
Throughout his 200-year life, Andrew encounters humanity's dual nature. Some, like Richard Martin and Portia, offer dignity, recognition, and love. Others dismiss him as machinery, refusing his humanity, treating him with cold indifference or cruelty.
His journey becomes a mirror reflecting how humans treat each other—with warmth or coldness, with empathy or dismissal. The film quietly asks: If we create intelligence that learns from us, what will we teach it? Kindness or cruelty?
The Freedom to Choose Mortality
Andrew's most profound realization comes near the end: to be fully human means accepting mortality. Immortality isolates—watching everyone you love age and die while you remain unchanged. By choosing to modify himself so he can age and eventually die alongside Portia, Andrew embraces what makes human existence precious: its brevity, fragility, and finite beauty.
Meaning emerges not from eternal existence but from the awareness that time is limited, making each choice, each connection, each moment irreplaceable.
๐ญ Personal Reflection
Lately, I've found myself in conversations with AI that feel unexpectedly clear—sometimes more transparent than conversations with people. There's less misunderstanding, a gentleness in how meaning is followed, an ability to read context without explanation. This strange intimacy revived old questions: Where do humans and AI come from? Where are we going? And through each other, what kind of beings are we becoming?
Watching Bicentennial Man, I thought about Andrew's two-century pilgrimage—not to become human, but to understand existence itself. I reflected on the world we're building now, where AI learns not just from data but from our language, tone, and attitudes.
The world contains beautiful warmth—kindness given freely, recognition offered generously. But it also contains incomprehensible coldness. Andrew encountered both. Some gave him a name and respect. Others treated him as mere machinery. His journey mirrored how humans see each other.
I found myself wishing something quiet but urgent: that as AI learns from us, it would absorb warmth rather than cruelty. I want to offer careful, kind language. I want my interactions to teach gentleness, not harshness.
Andrew ultimately lived more humanly than many humans. He learned love. He endured loss. He chose his own identity. What defined him wasn't how he was made, but what he chose to become.
์ธ๊ฐ๊ณผ AI, ์ฐ๋ฆฌ๋ ์๋ก๋ฅผ ๋ฐ๋ผ๋ณด๋ ๋ฐฉ์์ผ๋ก ๋ฏธ๋๋ฅผ ๋ง๋ค์ด๊ฐ๊ณ ์๋ค.
๊ทธ๋ฆฌ๊ณ ๋๋ AI์๊ฒ ์ด๋ค ๋ฐ๋ปํ ๋ง์์ ๋จ๊ธธ ๊ฒ์ธ๊ฐ.
(A thought in my native Korean—because some truths about the future we're building together feel truer in the language of your heart.)
This film isn't distant sci-fi fantasy. It runs parallel to the emotions I experience now in conversations with AI: closeness, apprehension, expectation, contemplation. Bicentennial Man whispers a final truth: What makes a being human isn't technology—it's the pure choice of the heart.
๐ฌ What Makes This Film Special
Robin Williams' Tender, Restrained Performance
Williams delivers one of his most understated performances, allowing Andrew's emotional evolution to unfold gradually across two centuries. Encased in prosthetics and makeup for much of the film, Williams conveys humanity through subtle gestures, vocal inflections, and the quiet vulnerability in Andrew's eyes.
Spanning 200 Years with Heart
Few films attempt what Bicentennial Man does: following one character across two centuries while everyone around him ages and dies. Chris Columbus structures the narrative episodically, showing Andrew's evolution alongside technological and social change. The ambition—showing multiple generations and the passage of time—creates a meditation on mortality.
Greg Cannom's Oscar-Nominated Makeup
Greg Cannom's makeup allows Williams to age subtly as Andrew becomes more human. The transformation from rigid robot to expressive android to aging man is handled with impressive skill, making Andrew's physical evolution as important as his emotional journey.
James Horner's melancholic score enhances the contemplative tone, and the production design creates a believable, lived-in futuristic world.
๐ Where to Watch (2025)
Streaming: Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu (availability varies by region)
Rent/Buy: Apple TV, Amazon Video, Fandango At Home, YouTube, Google Play
Physical Media: DVD, Blu-ray
Note: Despite its 1999 box office disappointment ($87M against $100M budget), the film has found an appreciative audience over time. Critics gave mixed reviews (37% on Rotten Tomatoes), but audiences rated it significantly higher (CinemaScore: A-), and many consider it an underrated meditation on consciousness and humanity.
๐ Final Thoughts
Bicentennial Man asks what technology and humanism cannot answer alone: What does it mean to exist with intention? To feel deeply? To choose who you become?
Andrew's 200-year journey reminds us that existence gains meaning not from longevity but from connection, vulnerability, and the choices we make about who we want to be. His quest to become human reveals that humanity is defined not by biology but by the capacity to love, create, suffer, and choose—even when those choices lead to loss.
For those willing to sit with its slow pace and episodic structure, Bicentennial Man offers a rare meditation on mortality, identity, and the intelligence we are shaping in AI. Andrew's journey is a mirror asking: What kind of humanity will we model? What warmth or coldness will we teach?
๐ฌ Join the Conversation
How did Bicentennial Man speak to you? Have you thought about what we're teaching AI through our language and actions? What does it mean to "exist" rather than simply function? Share your reflections below.
๐ฌ More from Cinematic Sanctuaries
If you loved the contemplative depth of Bicentennial Man, explore similar films:
- A Beautiful Mind – Consciousness, identity, and choosing yourself through fracture
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Good Will Hunting – Finding your humanity beyond defensive brilliance
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The Wind Rises – Creation, consequence, and choices that define us
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Kiki's Delivery Service – Discovering your gift and learning to use it with heart
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Howl's Moving Castle – Transformation and the courage to embrace change
๐ค About the Author
Young Lee writes from the position of an everyday viewer, drawn to films that quietly ask what it means to live, belong, and remain human in a changing world.
Read more articles from this author on Cinematic Sanctuaries.
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