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A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Widescreen Special Edition)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Widescreen Special Edition)

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mission accomplished
Review: Typically, I try to watch a movie twice before forming an opinion.

I couldn't bring myself to watch "A.I." again.

Sure, the effort was there (unlike Spielberg's lazy "Lost World: Jurassic Park"), but the movie didn't have clear sense of what it was trying to be. Was it a fairy tale? A dark twist on that genre? It alternated between polar opposites too drastically to be coherent, and managed to be boring all the while.

Other elements came out of left field ("Then a thousand years go by and hyper-intelligent robots make everything all better!") interrupting what little narrative flow there was. I like to be surprised, not flabbergasted.

Another Steven Spielberg film, "Raiders of the Lost Ark," is my favorite movie, and one of the biggest blockbusters of all time. The consensus is that Spielberg has decided to stop making crowd-pleasing films.

Mission accomplished.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Artificial Movie
Review: Artificial Intelligence comes across to me not like a movie in the usual sense. To me it was more like Spielberg spending 2-1/2 hours worshipping what little is left of his creativity. And why is this clunker so excruciatingly long? Simply because Spielberg couldn't figure out how to end the thing. As a modern rehash of the old Pinocchio myth, Artificial Intelligence is a complete flop. The special effects are interesting (thank God for special effects!) but Spielberg spoils the fun by applying a thick layer of cheap sentimentality to everything in sight. Haley Joel Osment is incapable of doing anything other than whining and making spaniel eyes at everybody. The single bright spot is provided by Jude Law who sparkles in his role as a sex worker robot. Who should see this movie? If you are among those who think that drug store greeting cards provide interesting reading, you should definitely see Artificial Intelligence. All others should stay away.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Spielberg misses big time
Review: Considering the budget and effort, this must be considered one of the worst movies of 2001. The whole movie ultimately revolves around the relationship of a robot child with his human mother and is told (in particular during the second two thirds) completely from the perspective of the child. In doing so, the movie loses its audience after the first 30 minutes or so. The intersting part ends when the kid is abandoned by his human mother. Up to this point the viewer could at least attempt to identify with the human parents. What makes the movie fail subsequently is the fact that the viewer is unable to find any identification points. The child - as emphasized by the movie, remains a machine, ultimately with an off switch. All that is left is a bad version of Pinochio.

Maybe this movie might have worked 100 years ago, but not in the year 2001...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: WHAT???
Review: I do not agree with all the people who say that A.I was a bad movie it is a great movie.
THIS IS WHY?
1)It had Great actors Haley Joel Osment is thirteen years old and he did not blink in the WHOLE movie.Which is outstanding feat for a 13 year old boy.
2)Very sad movie,David never got to be what he wanted to be and even the boys mom did not believe in him I know that it would seem weird to just not believe in your own son and believe a virtual boy but the boy told him to do bad things the mother could have asked for an explanation. He went all that way to find the blue fairy and belived and had faith that if he found the man who made him he would become a real boy.
3)Steven Spielberg made the movie.He has always made great movies like E.T.
4)and lastly Spielberg made a movie he wrote the movie while other people cant make good enough movies and Steven Spielberg isnt one of them.
5)I have more reasons why this movie was great but I need to clean my whiskers.
SINCERELY,THE SILENT CAT
P.S:IT [was] NOT [bad] LIKE SOME PEOPLE SAY,I RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE(100% SATISFACTORY)...

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Speilberg mixes Kubric and Disney and just makes a mess
Review: Yuck, this movie is pretty awful. There is no doubt that Speilberg has had his moments but this is one of the lesser ones. Hayley Joel Osment, although he literally irritates me..., was quite good in this film. Jude Law, as usual was great and most of the rest of the cast were great. I said MOST! The guys who plays the father in this film is so furiously terrible that I didn't even read the credits to find out who was responsible for such a performance, out of sheer embarrasment. Most notably this is a bad error of judgement on Spielbergs part. the screenplay is something only Stanley Kubric could have pulled off. Speilbergs mix of cruel, cold and "Disney" is marred from being disturbing and effecting by the fact that it just looks plain stupid and misguided. I REALLY wanted this film to end toward the last third because I thought the point of the film had been made when the kid was dumped by his surrogate mother. Basically this is a cruel, nasty ugly film that was really badly executed...

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: An Interesting, Mixed Bag
Review: An interesting mix of very good sci-fi that works, and very high concept that doesn't.

The Kubrick-Spielberg mix has resulted in the film's greatest flaw -- its uncertain tone. Is it "hard" sci-fi, like "Blade Runner?" Is it Spielbergian fantasy like "E.T.?" Or is it, at its heart, "Pinocchio?"

The result is as mired in identity crisis as something like Disney's "The Black Cauldron" -- technically excellent, but ultimately unaffecting and confusing.

Despite Spielberg pulling every heart-tugging scene out of his bag of tricks, and some infectiously sweet performances by Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law, we can't totally bond with the characters because we can't identify with the movie as a whole.

It's not terrible. It's certainly watchable, at points it's likeable and Spielberg is always good at evoking an emotional response from his audience.

But on the whole, it's somewhat like what would have resulted if someone had asked "Charlie Brown" creator Charles Schulz to finish a Monet. It would come out alright, but not exactly be an effective mix.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This should have been great.
Review: What happened? Popular actors, Big budget, a whelming director. Basically I think this suffers from the same syndrome that 'Star Wars' episode one was affected by. It is way too cutesy and like in a dream (nightmare) if you get painted into a corner, just add a new element. Each actor alone was great with the elements that they were given, However as a whole they never jelled.

One thing that saves this film is the edition of the DVD goodies. The making of the film in the theory behind the film are more interesting than the film. If you'd like to Gigolo Joe, then that is primary because they allowed Jude Law to put a little bit of his own slant on the character.

In the final analysis this is a tearjerker with no redeeming social value.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: "A" Why?
Review: For a movie that's almost eight hours long, it sure only felt like it was six and a half hours long.

When the sole redeeming quality of your movie is a talking teddy bear, you might want to reconsider things. I'm tired of the Spielberg-buffs saying that this movie is "brilliant", "visionary" and that people are "missing the point". Last time I checked, a movie must HAVE a point in order for me to MISS it. And if you're hoping that John Williams' score will help this movie, think again. It's buried so deep in the mix, you'll hardly ever hear it.

Rent "Pinocchio" instead... you won't want to check yourself into a psych ward after watching it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: In Defense of the End of the Movie.
Review: I have seen many reviews, rail on how pointless the ending of this movie was, or even worse they go on about how moving the whole movie was, but how the ending just didn't "pay off". Here is one persons opinion, and if you don't want the end spoiled for you don't read on. The end of the movie, was utterly perfect, it brought home the whole meaning of what it means to be human. David had been seeking the whole movie to be human, or to be seen as "human" by the one person he loved, and considered his mother. When she admits to him at the end, before she falls asleep that she does "love him", it makes his entire journey worthwhile. I too was wondering where the movie was going with the undersea adventure, and the alien post script, but think of the aliens at the end of A.I. as the nicer version of the aliens in "Dark City". They sought to find out what it means to be human, and they found it in love. How many of us when we love someone wouldn't like to spend a day with them without any of the distractions of the world, and be there complete focus. Anyone who has lost a loved one, or watched someone change dramatically, can relate to the ending of this film, as being memorable. Just because the meaning has to do with love, does not make it sentimental trash, it just shows that our spirit is what makes us human, not our flesh and bones.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An inspired, slightly flawed blend of futurism and humanity
Review: Well, with a team like Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick, and actors like William Hurt and Haley Joel Osment, it's hard to go wrong in a film involving them. And for the most part, that's true.

AI is loosely a futuristic Pinocchio, complete with character equivalents of Geppetto (Dr. Hobby/Monica) and Jiminy Cricket (a walking, talking "supertoy" teddy bear). David, a "mecha" robot child, designed to bond and unconditionally love the foster family in which he is placed, is ultimately abandoned by his "mother," Monica, due to a serious of misunderstood events. This happens in a particularly disturbing scene where Monica chooses to leave David in the forest rather than return him to the company that made him, presumably sparing him of being dismantled and offering him a chance to survive. This is perhaps one of the most difficult scenes I've ever had to watch, in which the nightmare of every child- abandonment by his mother- is acted out, as David literally clings to his mother while she, distraught and filled with conflicting emotions, gets in her car and zooms away. If you don't feel for David at this point- and it's hard not to- the rest of the film may seem pointless. At any rate, David's journey truly begins.

David finds himself outrunning "stray robot" catchers but is eventually caught. He winds up as the main attraction at a "flesh fair," a futuristic Christians-to-the-lions type sporting event, where humans, in a barabaric display of retaliation against technology, do terrible things to robots, like shoot them through cannons and dump acid on them. David escapes his doom and makes off with another "mecha," gigolo Joe, a robot-cum-male prostitute. Joe briefly "educates" David on the ways of the world, and helps him to accomplish his mission: to find the blue fairy, who will make him a real boy, so that his mother will take him back.

David learns that he must find Dr. Hobby, the man who actually created him as a prototype for the series of child robots he hopes to market. He finds Hobby in a polar-cap flooded Manhattan, where he realizes that, contrary to what he has been told, he is not unique, as he views rows of robots like himself awaiting activation.

Without spoiling the ending, David completes his journey, but in a most unexpected way, leaving viewers with some serious questions about what just happened. Nevertheless, the ending is spellbinding and touching.

The film is a social commentary on the gradual but sure increase of how technology supplants the need for humans, and a more subtle treatise on how humans are spending less time talking to one another, and more time obsessing over material things. Even deeper, it touches on our basic need to be loved, and, despite our flaws, the apparent ingenuity of the human race. In fact, this last point serves as a metaphor for the film's quality: flawed, but ingenious, nonetheless.

All of this is thinly disguised at times and at others quite blatant through the use of imagery and dialogue. Visually, the film is a unique mix of directorial styles: Kubrick's violent and enigmatic surrealism, and Spielberg's childlike and sentimental but hopeful vision. The social commentary is set against a backdrop of eerie futurism, complete with human-like robots, spaceship-looking streetcars, and neon-drenched cities of earthly pleasures.

AI is a also curious juxtaposition of many of the great sci-fi movies like E.T., Close Encounters, Bladerunner, and Contact, and the harsh surrealism that defines Kubrick movies such as A Clockwork Orange and 2001: A Space Odyssey. At its core, though, is the fundamental yearning that humans have to be loved, the struggle in dealing with tragedy, and the technology vs. people-power battle. The film, however, does send some mixed messages about happiness being dependent upon the love of someone else. There are also some inexplicable plot twists that seem too convenient for the story. As might be expected in a Spielberg film, though, the special effects are marvelous yet organic as opposed to showy. Also, John Williams' (who else?) score captures the mood of the movie with childlike melodies and haunting soundscapes. All in all, AI is a fascinating fusion of science-fiction, intense drama, visual wonder, and a story that is steeped in humanity.


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