A.I. - Artificial Intelligence (2001)
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Stanley Kubrick was regarded by many as one of cinema's greatest filmmakers. In the last years of his life one of the projects he spent much time on was an adaptation of Brian Aldiss' sci-fi short story "Supertoys last all Summer long". After his death the project was picked up by Steven Spielberg, one of the most successful directors of all time but unfortunately the resulting movie doesn't live up to the reputation of either director.
The story could be lazily described as a sci-fi version of Pinochio. A couple of parents who have a seriously ill young son agree to take on a prototype android child, to provide a little bit more life around their house. However, they find it difficult to deal with the android who - despite being a highly detailed facsimile of a real child - is undeniable alien. Their problems intensity after their real son recovers from his illness and returns home to the family house.
The android - called David and played by Haley-Joel Osment - may look human but varies in many ways from the real thing, he finds it difficult to relate to human emotions and can't participate in normal human functions such as eating. His presence puts the family under increasing strain and eventually David ends up away from the home and lost in a hostile world. In this future world, androids (or "mechas") are commonplace and rogue androids are regularly hunted down to be destroyed in deranged circuses by humans who believe androids are eroding human culture.
David encounter one such rogue android - "Gigolo Joe" (played by Jude Law) - who is on the run after being framed for murder. He agrees to help David on David's rather naive quest to find the "Blue Fairy", an entity David believes can make them fully human. This search takes them to a drowned New York where David finds something that is quite different to what he expects.
Unfortunately, the audience also finds something different to what they expect as despite the film coming to a point where it could logically end, it instead continues for another half-hour, leading into a rather surreal and unnecessary epilogue which raises the question "What was Spielberg thinking?".
The terrible end sequence is undoubtebly one of this film's biggest flaws but it is sadly not the only one. AI is impressive as a technical achievement - Spielberg's direction is among the best he's done, the special effects are seamless and brilliant and the acting from Law and Osment makes them seem more than mere machines while being convincingly alien.
Unfortunately the plot meanders, the opening section has plenty of well-handled melodrama as the strained relationship between the human family and their android son is explored, but after that the film gets increasingly wild and implausible. Another significant flaw is that the androids seem more lively than the relentlessly dull human characters and when the most interesting character in the film is a talking teddy bear there's a definite problem in the characterisation department. The unmemorable dialogue doesn't help, and some of the character's actions are quite implausible - especially later in the film. The occasionally-glimpsed future world doesn't really seem that interesting either, there's plenty of technology around but it's basically modern society with a few bells and whistles attatched in an attempt to make it look impressive. The issues of how humans would relate with androids are interesting to explore, but this film disdains to come to any conclusions and apart from the (possibly timely) warning about the perils of climate change, this film doesn't real perform as a work of speculative science-fiction. Equally, as a piece of entertainment it is at best mediocre, with few interesting characters, an occasionally weak plot and a baffling ending this is nowhere near the standard of past Spielberg movies such as ET or Close Encounters.
In summary, a disappointing film that despite impressively high production values is ultimately forgettable.
Rating : 5 / 10
All content ©2003 William Marnoch.
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