Customer Reviews

A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (Widescreen) [2 Discs]

5 star:		(234)
4 star:		(110)
3 star:		(63)
2 star:		(81)
1 star:		(145)

 

 

I have a strong interest in artificial intelligence. I am fascinated by the possibilities for humans and our future. Japan has always embraced robots as benefactors of humankind, but American entertainment always portrays robots as sinister and a mistake.

A.I. puts the blame on the humans, who are abusing the "mecha," humanized robots, that they have created. Although the premise is worthy, A.I. leaches all hope out of the viewer and replaces it with utter bleakness. The scene of the toy teddy bear lumbering after his abandoned robot boy master (Haley Joel Osment) in the dark forest is almost as unbearable as the endless scene of the same boy robot's open, staring eyes as he has been trapped at the bottom of the ocean for many years. The scenes of innocent Mecha being systematically destroyed for human entertainment, including a gentle nanny robot, are a kind of robot Schindler's List.

The film is too long. Jude Law gives the best performance as a robot gigolo who befriends the boy. The special effects are flawless, but in this case they just serve to make your depression more realistic. A.I. fails in its mission to be thought-provoking, which is very unfortunate, because this could have been a masterpiece.

This movie isn't terrible but because it comes from two great directors, the bar must be raised a bit. At it's back-bone, the movie relies on a series of plot-points that are contrived to push your emotional buttons. The first is when the robot designers claim that the big question when designing a robot is "will it be loved" - oh, please. This is NOT the "big question" in brain AI development. The real "big questions" are ones like: "will an AI brain develop a soul" and "what are the moral implications of shutting off an AI brain. The question of love is just a typical application of "Spielberg's special sauce" to make you cry in the end.

Next, the imprinting burn-in - another rediculous contrivance. An AI brain as sophisticated as the boy's would behave like a real boy. It would develop attachment like an orphan adopted into a family - over time by mental imprinting - not some half-baked process like entering your serial number whilst installing Photoshop.

Now, remember that the parents signed up for this experimental robot-boy with the "Dad's" company. Why then did the "mom" dump the boy in the forest? Didn't she realise that the company was going to wonder where their $80 billon robot was? Why couldn't she just give it back to the company? Maybe because this begs the very interesting question, "what are they going to do with it then?" But this movies carefully avoids these and other interesting questions.

What about the robot hunters? Why are they flying in a futuristic balloon? Why not one of the many cool flying cars in the movie? And how about their "futuristic" bounty-hunter lingo? Is this cliché dialog Spielberg or Kubric? I guess it doesn't matter - it's bad both ways.

Let's jump to the end. The ET-looking-people have travelled the countless zillions of light-years, settled on the earth, and can bring "Mom" back to life but only for 1 day! This is the final blow. After witnessing this, I felt used.

CONCLUSION:

Instead of being achieving a kind of gestalt effect, "AI" suffers from it's association with both of it's great directors. It not only fails to address REAL questions of AI, it avoids them. The periodic introduction of contrivances makes it painful and sometimes laughable to watch. There is really no end to the movie. It just kind of slows to a full and complete stop.

Finally got around seeing this science fiction film that posits a world of man...and machine.

Although the film goes on longer than it had to, this Spielberg/Kubrick effort is simply wonderous in its tale of how an uneasy humanity confronts ever-increasingly human-like robots. Throughout the film one can sense the approach-avoidance emotions that the actors have with the machines that take over more and more of our lives. The machines clean our houses, make our products, and even satisfy our more elementary needs. And, perhaps, they begin to do all of this too well. Could it be that humans have manufactured their own replacements? And that unease only deepens when mechanical children enter the picture. Can one love a robot? Can one love back?

The plot has been relayed in depth here, so I won't repeat it, but suffice it to say that the plot is solid, makes sense in the confines of the film, and doesn't strike too many false notes. I did think the film was going to end several times before it finally did.

This is a good film to buy, because one's appreciation of the film will only deepen upon repeated viewings.

And I can't say enough about the special effects, nor Jude Law's performance. It's frightening and heart-warming at the same time. And Haley Joel Osment is as good here as in 'The Sixth Sense'; the perfectly lovable, er, robot.

Highly recommended.

I am a little late writing this review, but as they say better late than never. If you are a science fiction buff, you will enjoy it. I loved it for the emotion and pure innocence. Others have criticized it, but in my opinion it's worth the investment. Watch it several times you will cry, each time! It grabbs you! I enjoyed every minute of it EXCEPT the "futuristic and a bit far fetched" prelude to the ending, here I expected more of the film. I found that anti climatic.

ON THE OTHERHAND

The acting by Haley Joel Osment was nothing short of outstanding, very emotional, beautiful and filled with true love. It is quite beyond me why this actor has not received the praise and accolades of his peers. This boy has performed so well (the sixth sense, and Pay it Forward) and others, each one better than the last. Even at the Oscars when the sixth sense won everybody was shocked that Haley did not get his. His acting in this was even better than Pay it Forward which I found excellent in both performance and concept. What is wrong in Hollywood, don't they recognize real acting talent, what more do they want from this boy?

Buy it you'll see what I mean!

Although never actually said in the movie, this is basically an updated, modernised, robot-ised version of Pinocchio. A Disney movie that was never among my favourites when I was young and still thought Disney movies were the bees knees. Straight away, I see the similarities between this and Pinocchio, just by watching the two trailers - which did nothing to make me WANT to watch the movie, even though I was going to anyway. (They were 'teaser' trailers - which didn't really show you very much!) However, knowing that Stan Winston was involved in the special effects did encourage me.

The film's two big stars are Haley Joel Osment, who is still in his Sixth Sense little cutie role, and Jude Law, who looks very strange in this. Very plastic, but intentionally so. To begin with, Haley's character, David, was so annoying; I wanted to slap him. And then I wanted to slap his 'brother' Martin even more. Both very annoying sounding and looking children. But if you're the kind of person (like me) who can't stand the annoying little brats, then don't worry. Martin doesn't appear that much in the movie, and I really grew to like David after a while - although it took until he was left at the bottom of the swimming pool, and then made to survive for himself. I was nearly in tears at those bits, and couldn't understand why his 'mommy' left him outside in the big, bad world to fend for himself. She, after all, was the one who 'activated' him, to make him love her or something like that. And she couldn't put him back to the company who made him, as he'd get destroyed. The whole section where she tries to leave him in the middle of god-knows-where, is very heartwrenching, as David desperately clings to her. David seems to do a lot of "clinging" in this movie, whether it's following the mother around, trying to protect himself, or attaching himself to Jude Law, which provides a hilarious line from Jude: "Well, it's certainly my good fortune running into you!"

Jude Law isn't one of my favourite actors, and seems to appear more in the press than in relatively good movies. He was great in this though, whether it was playing a robot that would give women lots of "pleasure", or the connection he had with David. Despite not wanting to be taken where David was going, he couldn't get David to let go of his hand, and they ended up becoming the most unlikely friends. Even "Gigolo Joe" helped David in the end. I thought his 'story' was never resolved, although it's most likely he ended up in a flesh fair. So not fair.

I found this film to be rather jumpy, and it jumped almost abruptly, skipping periods of time. I was left unsatisfied at the end of the movie, although I'm glad that the relationship between David and his 'mommy' was resolved at the end. It's a very sad ending.

This movie had big similarities to Bicentennial Man, and also The Wizard Of Oz - the whole going to see Doctor Know, to find the Blue Fairy, is similar to going to find the "wonderful wizard of oz". And obviously, Pinocchio. There's even some parallels with Blade Runner where the robots are ostracised.

The star of this movie? In my opinion, it isn't Jude Law or even the adorable (yet bratty to begin with) Haley Joel Osment. Instead, it's the absolutely gorgeous, the number one Supertoy, Teddy! (I want one!!) I thought he was adorable, and was the star of this movie. I can't tell you how many times I watched the scene where Martin & David are trying to get Teddy to come to one of them. And as soon as he sees the mother, he's off shouting "Mommy! Mommy!" It's also so cute how he runs. Or when he get separated from David at the flesh fair, he keeps asking "Where's David? Can you help me find David? Are you taking me to David?" Or when that device is scanning him at the flesh fair and he puts on this little growly face! Awww! The end scene featuring him, is the saddest ever. What happened to him?

I'm not sure what to think of this movie. I enjoyed it, but I found myself not being able to understand what was going on a lot of the time. It's not a film I would watch again, and it's also an incredibly long film, feels a lot longer than the 2 hours 20 minutes it actually is.

And my final thought for this review is: "Mommy! Mommy!"

Following in the footsteps of many, many superior science fiction attempts at understanding the human condition (Blade Runner being only the most obvious), AI trundles through its overlong running time like a clumsy big budget behemoth. Pretty pictures do not a good film make. Osmond, a future VH1 "Where Are They Now?" candidate if there ever was one, does his best at playing the vapid David, a small android chock full of repressed psychosexual rage and abandonment issues. The audience is forced to trek with David through a landscape populated by machines with hearts of gold, leaving one to wonder if it would have been possible for Speilberg to force feed us the question "what does it mean to be human?" any more obviously than he does with the constant stream of bad human/good machine scenes. I took this movie as a personal insult from the director, since he apprently believes his audience completely incapable of appreciating subtlety or allusion. Want to set up android discrimination as a proxy of race discrimination? Why, have a mechanized Chris Tucker robot hurled by white rednecks into a jet turbine! Doesn't get any clearer than that, folks. The ending of the film fumbles its chance at redemption, choosing not to finish on a dark note, but rather to pound the poor audience with yet another hamfisted allusion (This movie is Pinnochio!! Did you get it?!?!). Lots of people like to say this is a flawed but brilliant film. I think it's an awful but pretty film.

Like most of Steven Spielberg's Movies, they are educational, very entertaining and well worth watching. Nice cinematics and a good cast.

To betray innocence is a terrible thing, but to create innocence only to destroy it is far worse.

The best thing that you can say about this movie is that it is definitely not formula written- it makes you think. Nor is it a "feel good" movie. And it is definitely not a children's movie.

What it is, is a modern fable or fairy tale- and the fairy tales of old were not written for children- they told deep primal or tribal truths. This tale tells a deep truth about our modern tribe- namely that modern man is no bloody good. The robots are portrayed as decent, innocent beings. The aliens are portrayed as decent, compassionate, and wise. However, not one human in the film comes across as a sympathetic character. Even "mommy" ends up betraying and abandoning the main character "David." Humans use and exploit and brutalize. In fact, when humans finally become extinct by the end of the film you accept it as a very good thing....

You can also see this film as parable about how mankind has traditionally treated animals, or children, or workers, or the poor. Whenever it has been possible to betray trust and behave abominably, mankind has always sank to the task. Why should we believe that we would treat intelligent machines any better than we have traditionally treated each other?

Just wanted to mention that it contains a French language audio and subtitle tracks, and a Spanish language subtitle track, for people who were wondering.

Spielberg's ability to convey intense emotion without descending into sentimentality never ceases to amaze me.

After seeing this movie at the cinema, it was several days before I could stop thinking about it. It is a science fiction story of epic proportions, combined with a fairy tale, and an incisive commentary on our current society; in short, there is plenty to digest in this film!

Also think about the many religious, poetic, and literary references here; the flesh fair is more than a vague reminder of the Holocaust; when Gigolo Joe firmly states "I am" then says "I was" as he is dragged up to be made into scrap metal, a definite correlation of human identity to the Old Testament God's statement "I AM who I AM" emerges. A Yeats poem called "The Stolen Child" is quoted by Dr. Know, which is peculiarly appropriate to David's quest as it unfolds. And of course, over arching everything, is the beautiful use of the Pinocchio fairy tale to explore that most difficult of all questions; what exactly is it that makes us human? These are just a few examples; I am sure I would pick up more on each viewing.

The acting, without exception, is superlative; after all, who wouldn't want a gigolo robot who looks like Jude Law ;-) and while the movie doesn't quite blend into a seamless whole (perhaps Kubrick and Spielberg never will) there are scenes that are absolutely outstanding. One is David's abandonment in the forest. Another is the flesh fair sequence. Throughout, much of the emotional intensity required must be maintained by Haley Joel Osment, and he carries the movie with seemingly effortless ease.

A final touch of genius on Spielberg's part must be mentioned; the inclusion of Superteddy, who ensures that the sublime, heightened emotions explored are punctuated by instances of comic relief, and provides a reminder that our most intense yearnings lie side by side with the amusing, ludicrous, and ridiculous elements of life.