Rating: 
Summary: 1 star for Teddy, none for AI
Review: This is a dull depressing movie starring an adorable toy bear who suffers through unsympathetic characters, a badly written script, and a ridiculous plot. You know it's a bad sign when a crudely animated teddy bear steals a movie that has a huge budget, a really cute kid, and some pretty amazing special effects. None of it works. Regardless of the rating and the teddy bear hero, under no circumstances should a child be allowed to watch this film. The movie sinks to it's lowest point in the nauseating "flesh fair" scene. There was not one redeeming human character and the robots were all as dumb as rocks. There is no intelligence here, artificial or otherwise. I could not figure out what the point of this story was. It seems to be telling us that a world run by machines would be bad but it would be better than a world run by humans. In fact, the movie hints at being anti-human. It is supposed to be a retelling of Pinocchio. Except for the obvious references and the painfully wooden acting, I don't see the resemblance. Even the Blue Fairy couldn't save this film. I endured to the end just to see what happens to the bear. I shouldn't have bothered. The ending is unsatisfying and defies basic logic.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't belive the negative hype!!!!
Review: For those of you expecting a "cute, sweet" Speilberg movie, like E.T. or Hook, then buy them. This is not that type of movie. The worst thing Dreamworks ever did was market this movie as a story of a little boy robot who dreams of being real. "His love is real, but he is not." Sounds cute, doesn't it? Well, it's not.I'm sorry to disappoint fans of E.T. and Indiana Jones, but directors grow (shudder!) as persons and in their craft. A.I. is not an incoherent mess, but a conglomerate of a story, a fable, and a moral lesson. The story is divided into three distinct sections (any mature, smart audience member will be able to see that): 1)The beginning of David, the "mecha," who is brought into a family to replace the son who is in a coma, 2) the journey of David, after he is thrown out by the family, and his desire to find The Blue Fairy who can turn him into a real boy (he had been read the story by his "mother"), and 3) the end of David. Speilberg shows us the dark side of the future, and raises interesting moral questions. If we can create something so life-like, can we become so attached to it that we cannot destroy it? Is it humane to destroy these "mechas?" Where do we stop? It mirrors the current debate over cloning. For every person who creates, there must be one who destroys, and Speilberg is not afraid to show this. This is Speilberg's darkest film to date, but it is also his most moving, in my opinion. And it is also spotted with Kubrick's influence as well. It is Speilberg channeling Kubrick channeling Speilberg and it pays off. While the subject matter is not inappropriate for children, it is likely that children (and, from reading some reviews, some adults) will not understand this picture. This is one of the most intriguing, brave, intelligent, and beautiful films of the year. The visions of New York City covered by the ocean and ice is particularly chilling. Brilliant, just brilliant! And the extras are a perfect companion to the film. I simply wish A.I. had gotten the credit it deserves.
Rating: 
Summary: I wanted to love this film...
Review: ...but, alas, I could not. The touch of The Master, Stanley Kubrick, is visible, but his delicate, cold but perfect imprint is smeared into a Spielbergian happy-face. The first of the films' three acts is the best, showing the impact of an artificial boy ('mecha') on a couple whose own child was taken from them by illness and lies in a (supposedly) irrevocable coma. The mecha, played brilliantly by Haley Joel Osment, is capable of loving whomever it imprints on if a series of code-words are spoken. The couple agonize over the idea, repelled then compelled by the notion of a loving machine/child. Spielberg shows admirable restraint, allowing the cast to bring this conflict out at pace through sometimes humorous, often disturbing vignettes. Eventually, the couple decides to "activate" the "love program" (for lack of a better term), knowing full well that the process is irreversible - a mecha who imprints can only love the one it imprints on. Should the imprint-ee change his or her mind later, the mecha must be destroyed or face a lifetime of torment over not being loved in return. This conflict drives the last two-thirds of the film, because - guess what - mom and dad change their minds. To their credit, it appears that they have good reasons, but the scene in which the mecha fully realizes he is being rejected is one of the most wrenching I have ever seen. Osment should have received an Oscar for his performance. Osment goes on a quest to find his mother and get her to love him. The simple directness of his need takes him through various places and events designed to reflect various human traits and needs - violence, lust and fantasy. He will not, of course, be distracted by these. Osments' mecha is perfect in love as no human can be, pursuing that most precious (and obsessively singular) thing to the end. Literally. The last two thirds of the film show a steady lightening of tone from Kubrickian to Spielbergian. This is not necessarily bad, but Spielbergs' optimism about human nature can sometimes lead to saccharine excess and easy resolution. It is difficult to explain my ultimate disappointment in the film without spoilers, so suffice to say humanity gets let off the hook for deserting this wonderful loving creation and the mecha gets a happy ending of sorts. Prior viewers of the film should ask themselves - how much more poignant would the film be if it ended with the discovery of the Blue Fairy and the prayer of a little boy?
Rating:
Summary: HOW TO RUIN A GREAT FAIRY TALE
Review: STAY AWAY - STAY AWAY - STAY AWAY
Can you believe it - a "Brain Dead" Spielberg film. No story, No plot, No continuity - NO GOOD.
The "Knock-Off" of a great fairy tale about a robot who yearns to be a boy. If this were a real fairy tale, it would have been a "Grimm" fairy tale, because that is exactly what the move is - GRIM
During the first part of the movie, you actually feel sorry for the robot child, David (Haley), and want to "beat the living hell" out of his biological brother (Martin).
All the compassion ends when his mom abandons David in the forrest presumably protecting him from disassembly.
This is where the movie actually falls apart. David departs on a Pinocchioesque crusade to find the Blue Fairy who will magically turn him into a real boy (or so he thinks). Through a magical mystery tour of so-so special effect robots living and dying in a forrest, at a Brothel city (Rouge City), and at a flesh fair (where most of the robots are uncerimonioulsy dismembered), David and his sidekick (Gigolo Joe, a male pleasure robot, who for the life of me can't remember in the fairy tale) hunt down the messiah, Blue Fairy.
Ending up at the undersea world of Manhattan (Yes, folks, we also have a global catastrophe here), David spends the next 2000 years pleading with a blue fairy statue at a submerged carnival to make him into a real boy... Many have reported the movie as very thought provoking, but all I can think of to ask is:
"How would Pinocchio look after spending 2000 years at the bottom of the ocean?"
The only thing I found enjoyable in the entire film was the little teddy-bear robot, aptly named "Teddy".
If I had rented it before buying, I would now not own it and would not rent it again.
Rating: 
Summary: Kubrick Resurrected
Review: I just finished viewing this for the first time, as felt as deeply disturbed about the movie as I was deeply moved to think about it. And then it hit me. That's what Stanley Kubrick used to do to me when I first saw his movies in the 70s! And then there were the similarity in themes. The Star-child at the end of 2001 is a resurrected David Bowman, representing a resurrected mankind. The scenes with David (in A.I.) sitting in a replication of his "parents'" house, alone, observed and then approached by alien-like robots of the future. And Dr. Strangelove -- the disturbing world comes to an end theme (albeit handled with profound humor). The scenes in Rouge City and the bars frequented by the delinquents in Clockwork Orange. Kubrick was all throughout this movie. And for me that means it was disturbing. But not necessarily in a bad way. Even perhaps in the best way. Yet, I cannot deny it was disturbing. At the same time, Spielberg has his imprint all over the movie too. The innocent little boy faced with both great wonder and awareness of the most profound horror about life. The boy looking toward a light-filled image. (Remember the famous scene in Close Encounters. And other Spielberg movies.) Of course, the special effects are top rate, another Spielbergian fingerprint. The movie delivered in a lot of ways. From the opening sequence I wanted to see New York City submerged under water. But at the same time I wanted it to deliver perhaps the impossible -- making David into a real boy that his "mother" loves. The ending is bittersweet. But perhaps the message is that miracles do not happen; only in fairy tales. This seems much more Kubrickian than Spielberg, at least classic Raiders-Spielberg. But I had hoped perhaps the future robots could somehow resurrect humans in soul as well as body. To do so for one day, and then have them die is Kubrick. And I think Speilberg intentionally put himself aside in this regard out of respect for Mr. Kubrick. I don't blame him for that. But that is what makes the movie ultimately disturbing. It doesn't deliver the emotion I -- we -- really want. Again, which is OK for a Kubrick film. And perhaps OK for a teenager perhaps too caught up in his philosophical inner dialogues. I think Kubrick set out at least making disturbing movies in order to get people to think, to change. And he certainly did that for me in my younger days. It is too early for me to gauge the effect of this movie in that regard. But I think it will. And for that I have to give his high marks. And I do. But it is still disturbing. There is still a frustrated emotion after the credits come on screen. Still, thank you Mr. Spielberg for resurrecting Mr. Kubrick, even if only for one day. That fact, mirroring the movie's theme as it does, sends a chill down my spine.
Rating: 
Summary: Aaaaarrrggghhhh
Review: This is one very, very, frustrating film. Swinging between dark to the point of gruesome and cloyingly syrupy, it is both fascinating and dead boring, worth watching, and a total waste of time.
Firstly, Spielberg spends about 50 minutes setting the scene, introducing us both to the earth as it is now and to the family, particularly the mother Monica, (Frances O'Connor) who takes in the robot boy David. These scenes occasionally drag, but since you assume they're going to set up the main story and make it more effective, you put up with them. Then there's a good hour and a half of David running around in search of mommy, who has abandonned him, meeting up with Jude Law as a robot prostitute, and surviving various traumatic experiences...and then the movie just keeps going, on and on and on. After a while, all tension and suspense dissipates, and it becomes schmaltzy and slow and well, robotic. And then there are a bunch of aliens, and a fairy, and so on and so on.
Its not so much disjointed as unfocused. It resembles Kubricks Space Odyssey in that individual shots go on forever. It resembles E.T in that you can't quite stop caring, even though you begin to hate everyone and get bored.
The parts that work the best, in fact the only parts that work, are those scenes with Jude Law. Although he's in about and hour of the film it feels far to short. He portrays the robot with feelings even though he's not programmed to have them much more effectively than Haley Joel Osment, who really cannot carry this much material. It's Gigolo Joe who is the one really remarkable character, and maybe Teddy
As for the rest......aaaarrrrgggghhh.
Rating:
Summary: It has it all
Review: I can't understand why some people don't like this film. A.I. has it all! Excellent acting, superb storyline, beautiful photography, cutting-edge special effects. In addition, it makes you think and feel. Questions are raised which easily give rise to intriguing philosophical discussions. What makes us human? What is the extent of our responsiblity to the world around us? A.I. has been added to my very short list of "best films of all time". My thanks to Stanley Kubrick who had the vision and to Steven Spielberg who implemented it!
Rating:
Summary: A good movie, without an appropriate DVD edition
Review: I'm not going to write much about the movie, I find it is a very good one, an interesting view of a future that really could happen (the poles melt, strict birth control, more dependence on machines, etc.) and very good acting from both Osment and Law. What made me write this commentary is the DVD edition. I am completely dissapointed with it and find unbelievable that Steven Spielberg let it go into the market. Just look at the video quality, it looks like a good VHS. The extras are good and with better video quality than the movie itself!
Rating:
Summary: Very disapointed!
Review: I wanted so much for this movie to at least be enjoyable, well it didn't even close. If you haven't seen this movie please rent it first and don't waste the $20 buying it.
Rating:
Summary: One of the worst I've seen lately
Review: This was one of the worst movies my husband and I have watched together. The first 45 minutes or so were okay, but the second half and especially the ending dragged on ridiculously and became less and less credible with the passing of each agonizing moment. When it ended, we both look at each other and laughed at what a total waste of time it was. Neither of us could believe that we actually sat through it hoping that it would get better. Needless to say, we expected much more from both the director and the cast.
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