Let’s get this out of the way: the film version of I, Robot with Will Smith is a terrible, terrible movie. It actually serves as an example of everything that can be wrong with a movie: straying too far from the original source material, lazy and cliched writing, terrible acting, poor special effects, and inappropriate product placement. It’s this last bit that’s probably the movie’s most egregious sin, since the opening scene has Will Smith unboxing a pair of “vintage 2004″ fucking Converse high tops.

This picture would be a lot funnier if I hadn't downloaded it from fucking Converse's own website

The Converse placement isn’t what confused me, though. When a character goes out of his way to point out another character’s shoes, it’s probably a bet that Will Smith’s Scrooge McDuck style money safe got filled with another bag of gold coins. No, what confused me was a scene about a third of the way through the movie, where Will Smith’s Detective Generic Hero and the guy who hates House the principal from Boston Public the dude whose friend touches dead people meet in a bar. They’re drinking Tecate (seriously, Tecate?), except it’s not future-car-Audi-driving Converse-wearing obvious they’re drinking Tecate. The labels are turned away from the camera – almost – except for one or two shots where the label becomes clear. And, there’s even a neon Tecate sign in the background that’s just barely out of focus in a reverse shot.

It’s not like I’m some Mexican ass-beer expert and I just instantly recognized the Tecate logo from a fleeting shot – I didn’t even know Tecate had a logo before I saw this abomonation of a movie. My experience with Tecate is soley limited to their irritating and obnoxious radio campaign. I recognized the beer as Tecate, despite the product not being so gratingly in-your-face as every other product in the movie. So, is this some form of subliminal product placement? Was that the point? Do you pay more for the opportunity to stealth in your product, or is that a low-rent form of advertising for sponsors on a budget? Or did someone in the prop department just really like Tecate?