A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

No spoilers in this review - if this thread ends up discussing spoilers later (it probably will, considering the nature of this movie), I'll edit and note it in the thread title.

SUMMARY

David (Haley Joel Osment), a robotic boy programmed to love, embarks on a quest to become a real boy so his adoptive mother will love him back.


RECOMMENDED FOR:

Those who want to see the rare sort of science fiction film that is both imaginative and meaningful.


REVIEW

After the long drought following his masterpiece Saving Private Ryan, Steven Spielberg finally returns to the silver screen with his most ambitious film yet.

A.I. is everything that Bicentennial Man tried and failed to be: a poignant and philosophical film about love, mortality, and creation expressed through the character of a modern Pinnochio, set in a visually imaginative future environment of epic scale.

Spielberg takes a noticeable departure in the overall tone that is normally expected of him, the most dramatic paradigm shift in the nature of his work since the shatteringly powerful Schindler's List. As A.I. had its roots as Stanley Kubrick's pet project for the last twenty years of his life, Spielberg makes a definite attempt to emulate Kubrick's style in weaving an intricate character study. David's journey and development in the film are focused on tightly, though they are placed in an environment of immense macroscopy.

A.I.'s visual impact is tremendous. This is quite simply one of the most well-conceived "future Earths" ever realized on the silver screen. No excessive flying cars, no unrealistic overestimation of the effects of global warming, and all packaged in a beautiful presentation. In visual spectacle, it is the film to beat this year.

The acting is solid and convincing. Haley Joel Osment delivers his finest performance yet, embodying the character of David and becoming him. Jude Law is absolutely fantastic and charming as his sidekick Gigolo Joe, the male pleasure robot. Frances O'Connor is as motherly a figure as one can get in her role as the woman who adopts David.

The only major problems in A.I. lie in certain scientific inconsistencies and impossibilities. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that the overly long and borderline ludicrous epilogue, although deserving of praise for being successfully touching, leaves much to be desired in terms of the difference between an imaginative vision of a science-fiction future and pure fantasy. However, such apparent issues lie on the surface and can easily be explained with a figurative, less overt explanation, as in the case with Kubrickian films like 2001: A Space Odyssey.

There is certainly room to improve in this film. While it is an excellent movie in terms of artistic quality, it is not a traditional "entertainment" film by any means, contrary to what is usually expected of Spielberg. The ending will continue to be one of the most disputed love-it-or-hate-it conclusions in cinema for years to come. However, none of these preclude A.I. from being a magical experience and a rare science fiction movie with both brains and creativity.

ok, i'll try to avoid spoilers...

but as expected, John William's music almost drove me mad!
It's everywhere! Especially in those moments when silence would have been welcomed. I don't need purple strings to TELL me this or that was an emotional moment, etc... T'was so intrusive...

And as IP said above... the epilog... if that time had been used to construct better relationship with the mother, it would have been great.
If the film had ended right before the narator's comment before the epilog, that would have been great; even Kubrickian. I haven't read Aldiss' story, but that last part of the movie looks so much as a Spielberg addtion.

Apart from the above, I liked the movie. Although having to put out JW's intrusive music was the tough part.

I ache to know what Stan would have done with it!

As an "All Audience" movie about the ethics of love and robots, this one is it (avoid by all means "Bicentanial Man", to echo IP above).
But imo, "Blade Runner" and the Replican's search for more life is more poignant, and much better filmed (and Vangelis music was always welcomed, well employed).

(I do thank Spielberg for not having used again the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" in this movie, although he must have had the temptation...)

I greatly enjoyed this film.

I didn't really find the music too intrusive, but it was nothing great either.

And with the ending, it sure wasn't necessary, and the movie would have been great if it ended earlier. But, that depiction of earth (I'll try to avoid spoilers) at that time was so creative and done so well.

I do thank Spielberg for not having used again the song "When You Wish Upon a Star" in this movie, although he must have had the temptation...

True, but he gave into temptation when it came to using ****SPOILER****his aliens from Close Encounters during the ending scenes! *****END SPOILER*****

"True, but he gave into temptation..."

hehe... yah, it's there that i meant he must have had the great temptation to say to John Williams:

"Hey! You know that little thing you did for Close Encounters... It would fit in well here too!"

That the characters and effects in the epilogue ending are well made and well conceived I don't deny. I liked the "vehicle" (trying to avoid a spoiler here!).

But was that ending needed?

This reminds me of Terry Gilliam's Brazil, and how the top brasses tried to force Gil to change the ending to give it a "good" ending, to make it into a "feel good" movie... They wanted Jil to truely save Tuttle, and them to truely live forever in hapiness in that "little house in the prairie"... how horrible!

So, I guess leaving that little guy for eternity under... well, you know where... wasn't their idea of a feel good movie for A.I....

Actually, juntel, I think the tacked-on ending to A.I, being an extension instead of a compression, is more like what happened with Blade Runner than Brazil...

You mean the original release, or director's cut?

As for Brazil, it was more about cutting, true.
But i was more referring to the process of getting a "goody goody ending"; in Brazil's case it was by cutting; in AI's and BD's cases, it was by adding.
In any case, it's annoying.

Yes, I agree.

On the other hand, the happy ending does have its merits in that it serves to give David the closure he wanted, while it is not in itself an entirely "real" solution...

That's what I hate: that necessity to give it closure...

Arghhh!

(btw, why do extra advanced civilisations are depicted with the british accent ? would the scottich accent, say, have put forward a lesser impression about the et's? :/ )

[webwizard333]

I just saw the movie last night and it has become one of my favourite movies of all time. Spoilers ahead-

I liked the way David's makers had tried to trick him into coming to them through the use of the Pinnochio Story. And I liked the ending, because it fell into the way the movie seemed to be going, with robots replacing humans (though I do agree about the music).

End Spoilers

[jerseydevil]

Well HOBBIT - I looked for AI thorugh the threads and I didn't find it - so you must have looked really hard.

But oh well - I'll bring this one up from the nether regions of where ever you found it.

And here is the link back to the one I started that HOBBIT closed.

http://entmoot.tolkientrail.com/show...=&postid=73028

[Darth Tater]

I liked the other thread better

[BeardofPants]

Oh, if ONLY Stanley Kubrick hadn't died....

[Lalaith]

I really liked AI. I almost cried in the end. But I thought that the movie should have finished when David was under the water. At that moment I though: Yeah, this was a good movie, let's get out of the cinema.
And then ... the movie went on another 30 minutes. That was too long.

[Blackboar]

I DID cry, it was really sad, I cried alot more than I did when watching Titanic and other drama films, I agree it went on a bit, but it was sad and sepressing and had a good ending.

[Lalaith]

Yeah, finally I liked the ending. It really made you think of that topic.
I only didn't cry when I watched the DVD because my Dad was sitting next to me. On my own - I would cry like a river.

[BeardofPants]

Well, I think the movie would have been more powerful if

he'd left it at the point where David was under the water, staring at the Blue Fairy.

[Lalaith]

Well, I think the movie would have been more powerful if

As I said.

[Lady Tinuveil]

I would like to say that I enjoyed this film; good art direction & realistic filming. I found it on vhs for $4.95, I got my moneys worth. I usually don't enjoy drama, but this movie made me wish I had a son. I didnt think it was too sad, just moving.
It wasn't too sappy, nor to long. But it could have used some more futureistic graphics, for the younger viewers to keep interest.

[Lalaith]

it was really good, but in the end a little too long, IMO