In Robot and Frank, James Marsden considers putting father Frank Langella into a retirement home but comes up with a much niftier, more futuristic solution: He’ll give his father a robot attendant that will keep him out of trouble. Most of us would know not to look a gift robot in the mouth (an orifice this bot doesn’t even possess), but Langella is at first wary of the mechanical man, who’s built like a Lego figurine and voiced by a gentle, fey Peter Sarsgaard. But then Langella decides that the best way to spice up his advanced age is to engineer a jewel heist, and soon enough, he’s conscripted Robot to lend a shiny, white hand. Smart thinking, since necklace-stealing laws don’t really apply to robots! (Didn’t Linda Hamilton warn us about this?)
