Overall Rating
  Awesome: 26.61%
Worth A Look: 32.11%
Average: 14.68%
Pretty Bad: 10.7%
Total Crap: 15.9%
12 reviews, 255 user ratings
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| A.I.: Artificial Intelligence |
by Erik Childress
"Spielberg Actually MADE A Brilliant Kubrick Film"
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Headline Tragedies. Heartstomping break-ups. The JFK conspiracy. Nothing stirs my emotions as much as a film by Steven Spielberg. Whether it is from my eyes or from the large theater sodas, I’ve probably drained more water watching a Spielberg film than those working the bottom decks of the Titanic. And in the year of 2001 when the combined brain factor of 98% of the movies fails to produce as much intelligence as can be found in the mere title of Spielberg’s latest, its only fitting that he has chosen to realize the final sci-fi vision of his friend and colleague, Stanley Kubrick. Spielberg even goes one step further. He hasn’t just picked up where Kubrick left off. He hasn’t filled in the blanks and taken the words and storyboards of a great filmmaker to mount one last tribute. Steven Spielberg has actually MADE a Stanley Kubrick film.Not that any film made by Spielberg can be without some of the signature Spielberg touches, but Kubrick’s spirit is present in just about every frame. We’re introduced to a world where the polar icecaps have left many of the major cities underwater and where robotics have advanced way beyond our years. Professor Allan Hobby works for such a corporation that designs worker robots and pleasure models. In a time when people (finally) need a license to conceive a child, due to the now limited resources of the planet, Hobby decides to build a child “mecha” that will love its parents/owners unconditionally.
The screening process for the first test unit turns to Henry and Monica Swinton (Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor), whose only son remains cryogenically frozen until medical science can catch up to his ailment. Monica is quite reluctant to give any of the love she has stored away for her son to the family’s new “toy”, David (Haley Joel Osment), but she is desperate to share her love with someone who can return it, so David becomes a part of the family.
In true Kubrick fashion, the surroundings of the characters from the medical center to their own home, is completely clinical and sanitized (as are usually their emotions), but this homelife turns out to be anything but Norman Rockwell. When misunderstandings turn to near tragedy, Monica has to “let go” of David in what is certain to be one of the most heartbreaking and disturbing scenes of the year.
David then sets off on a quest of self-discovery. Accompanied by the amazing walking/talking teddy bear, Teddy (certain to be the most sought-after wish-we-had-it toy since Robert Zemeckis introduced the Hover Board in Back to the Future 2), and enraptured by the tale of another boy creation, Pinocchio, David sets off to become a real human. After all, if he’s as real as everyone else, then he’s just as worthy to receive someone’s love.
Someone familiar with the creation of love, or the appearance of love, specifically to women, is Gigolo Joe (Jude Law). He’s (or It’s) another “mecha” on the run from the law and scavengers, led by Lord Johnson-Johnson (Brendan Gleeson), who enjoy a Thunderdome-like public execution of “artificiality”, which is as unsettling an answer as you’re going to find to such a debate.
Joe then plays Jiminy Cricket to David, aiding him in his quest for the “Blue Fairy”, the storybook character responsible for Pinocchio’s transformation and here, like 2001’s Monolith, a substitute for God. Joe’s a likable chap, dancing around and complete with a Fonzie-like jukebox in his head, but he’s also one with a dour view on his own existence in a world where the humans are inferior yet treated as the superior and it clashes somewhat with David’s more optimistic take on the world.
Some will, no doubt, point out the obvious similarities between David & Joe and Spielberg & Kubrick. One a cinematic visionary with a childlike innocence lurking behind a mantra of hope for the world in which we live and a second visionary willing to poke his head into the dark corners of human frailty and not necessarily finding all the answers. The fingerprints of both visionaries are stamped all over this creation, however, and it turns into a film lover’s “wish upon a star.”
Amidst all the heavy themes and plot threads being weaved together here, Spielberg knows how to take elements from the classic sci-fi storylines and never make you feel like he’s just throwing darts at a non-existent board. You’ll recognize ideas from Waterworld, Logan’s Run, The Day the Earth Stood Still (Monica “programs” David with a predetermined set of single words), Blade Runner, Night of the Living Dead, D.A.R.Y.L. and certainly Isaac Asimov’s “Bicentennial Man”. He’s also playful enough to deliver some of the landmarks we’ve come to recognize in both director’s productions, just as Kubrick slipped in a copy of 2001 in A Clockwork Orange’s record store. You get points for recognizing the giant moon, a Ferris wheel; a place called “Strangelove’s” and that Teddy talking in a monotonic voice to someone named David.
Kubrick put A.I. on hold for years (after seeing Jurassic Park), as he realized we were on the verge of a new age of computer-enhanced special effects. It may not have taken a visionary to see that, but it did take a master filmmaker to put such a vision on hold until it could be told properly and put into the right hands. The special effects in A.I. are nothing short of extraordinary. You may never trust your eyes again the first time a robot character (in human form) is revealed without a single noticeable edit. Images of half chewed-up robots and Manhattan buried up to its skyscraper roofs are ones you will not likely soon forget.
But like one of the film’s central motifs, where there is technology there are also humans and at the center of all the bright lights and gadgets is young Haley Joel Osment, who may arguably be the greatest child actor in history. It’s enough of a challenge to play all the subtle ticks of a mechanical creation, but to make us believe that and to then gradually make all the transitions necessary from happiness to loss of hope to rage in his pilgrimage to become a real person is an extraordinary achievement. Osment will be on the short list for Best Actor candidates next February. As Spielberg has said many times, without a story, special effects are meaningless. A.I., like many of Spielberg’s films, tries to take what is, in essence, a special effect (David) tries to make him “real” and gets the audience to believe in it (or him).
Equal praise can be given to Jude Law who supplies a playfulness and yet an intriguing menace to Joe. He gets several terrific speeches that may also have him looking at a possible nomination. John Williams' music is used in the same subtle way which it was in Saving Private Ryan. There is more music but never amped up to an operatic level or a recurring theme.
Good or bad, A.I. is a film that will certainly be debated and isn’t it just a treasure to associate the word “debate” with any movie coming out these days? Like a Stanley Kubrick film, it will most likely have to be experienced through multiple viewings to truly appreciate all the complexities lurking behind every celluloid corner. Because audiences are so predisposed to a 1-2-3 style of storytelling (especially from Spielberg), one viewing may do an injustice to convince someone of its power. (It’s Space Odyssey-like climax will likely lose some people.) There are scenes of intense emotional power and quiet poetry. It is creepy, heartbreaking and has numerous surprises. This is a Grimm’s fairy tale without the interference of a Disneyfication. There are discussions of God, family, our place in the world, and most importantly, the need for love.Technology will improve. Humans will come and go and someday may even cease to exist. But love is the universal emotion. We all want to love something. Whether it is movies, sports, literature, a pet or our fellow man, we all want to be happy and will love anything that makes us so. We’re all searching for someone who can love us back as much as we love them, even if it is for only a single day.
link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=4734&reviewer=198
originally posted: 06/28/01 09:50:01
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USA
29-Jun-2001 (PG-13)
UK
N/A
Australia
13-Sep-2001 (M)
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