Rating: 
Summary: Spielberg's Disconcerting Fable
Review: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is an interesting piece of work not only because it mulls the possibilities of human technology in the future but also because it is a joint effort between two accomplished filmmakers. The film had been on the late Stanley Kubrick's plate for over twenty years, but he shared many of the details on a regular basis with the man whom he planned to collaborate with - Steven Spielberg. Through numerous faxes and telephone calls (the two rarely spoke in person), Kubrick offered his thoughts, ideas and storyboards on the project and then much to Spielberg's surprise, passed the torch to him to direct his upcoming masterpiece. When Spielberg asked why he had decided to offer him such an important role, he simply replied, "I think this movie is closer to your sensibility than mine." Sadly, Kubrick never lived to see the fruits of their combined labor - he passed on only two months before his last project (Eyes Wide Shut) was released nationwide and even though Spielberg had not written a screenplay since his 1977 film "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind", he was determined to keep their dream alive and inherited the entire project. The story, recycled many times over in its making, begins somewhere in the near future where the creation of artificial beings has already been conquered and much of America's coastal metropolises are waist-deep in ocean. A man named Professor Hobby endeavors to change the course of history by inventing an automaton that will not only be capable of human emotion but become a free-thinking organism, forming its own dreams and goals. His accomplishment comes in the form of blue-eyed and rosy-cheeked David (Osment), an android child inducted into the household of Monica and Henry Swinton, a couple whose son Martin is lies frozen in a cryogenic chamber in a deep-seated coma. Aghast at the thought of replacing Martin's presence in the house with a mechanized youngster, Monica questions her husband's morals as well as her own but soon finds David's presence to be a soothing surrogate. One fateful afternoon, she recites a seven-word cryptogram and once voiced, the code causes an irreversible change. David's blank gaze melts as the last word leaves Monica's lips, his eyes taking on a new light as he slumps into her lap, wrapping his arms about her and whispering, "You're my mommy". One might think because of Spielberg's ruling over the project that like his other fantasy flicks (e.g. E.T., "A.I." is sure to have a happy ending. Guess again. The film is anything but uplifting, and ever-optimistic spectators be warned - hope is a profoundly undervalued sentiment by everyone except our darling mechanized tot in this bleak futuristic saga. "A.I." depicts human beings as being anything but human - we are a thoughtless and cruel species bent on keeping this entire planet to ourselves. Kubrick/Spielberg paint a very dour picture of the future of the human race in a particular scene where hundreds of rowdy orgas are gathered at a "Flesh Fair". Ruthless ringmasters tear innocent mechas limb from limb or perniciously liquefy their bodies with sulfuric acid, the bloodthirsty crowd cheering on like drunken patrons at a monster truck rally. The movie doesn't even give us any hope of survival after 2000 years; the planet becomes a barren landscape of ice and snow and vast cities with their towering skyscrapers are hidden far beneath the wintry, mountainous slopes. There's no mistaking who rules this ultramodern parable - Haley Joel Osment stars as David, the endearing android of programmed compassion. Once again, he wrenches our hearts with a powerhouse performance equal to that of his turn in the supernatural blockbuster "The Sixth Sense". With his porous eyes and petite pucker, Osment is a sight for sore eyes and it's hard not to sympathize when he becomes the victim of cruel circumstance. William Hurt does a nice job as Professor Hobby, David's lord and creator and a man torn between personal grief and his lifelong aspirations for technological triumph. Jack Angel, a man who has done several voiceovers for animated movies and television shows gives the fuzzy-faced supertoy Teddy personality and compassion while Frances O'Connor (Mansfield Park, Bedazzled) looks beautiful, stricken and mystified all at the same time as Monica, David's orga mother. The most entertaining character is Gigolo Joe (Law), a mecha designed specifically for erotic ventures. He's a suave and charming character that is quite obviously modeled after the twinkle-toed golden age movie star Fred Astaire. Swathed in a nylon zoot suit and patent leather shoes that padebarie at a moment's notice, Joe can change his hair color at will and with a snap of his neck, serenade lovers with oldies resounding from a built-in radio. Whenever Law takes a prolonged pause during the movie, his Play-Doh-like appearance makes him look like a statue snatched directly from Madame Trusseau's Wax Museum. Almost all of A.I.'s breathtaking visual effects are manned by the divine duo of Stan Winston and Dennis Muren. Winston and Muren collaborated on the superb effects created for James Cameron's "Terminator 2: Judgment Day", creating the mold for the T-1000, the movie's villainous doppelganger of malleable steel. Let's also not forget their dually produced jaw-dropping animatronics in Spielberg's 1993 blockbuster "Jurassic Park". Spielberg and Kubrick picked the cream of the crop for their epic - Winston is the second of only two special effects artists to be honored with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame and Muren, a man long recognized as one of the most accomplished innovators of modern visual film effects, is a member of the illustrious visual effects company Industrial Light & Magic. Another old-hat is John Williams, an unearthly composer that has created dramatic and memorable scores for almost every one of Spielberg's films in the past (Jaws, E.T., Saving Private Ryan, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, etc.). This time around, he has produced a morose and eerie milieu for the symphonic resonance of A.I. Where one might think there's a glint of hope, Williams paints a different picture with his immaculate and desolate oeuvres, a throng of weeping violins in the foreground of a melancholy chorus of woodwinds. Although "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" is quite the dour bedtime story, it benefits not only from its unique storytelling but also from its stark ability to reveal the truth about human nature. It is only after taking a step outside of ourselves that we see the truth about one another and discover just how great the need for change really is.
Rating:
Summary: Replicant Night, or: Never the Machine Forever
Review: .... ...the admiration I have for *A.I.* is based on the spiky remnants of Kubrickian darkness that broke the surface of this terribly uneven film, which Spielberg (true to form) drenches with bathos from start to finish. Kubrick threw the gauntlet down before his younger colleague, challenging him to put aside the cuddly Harry Potter frippery of *E.T.* and *Hook* (or even the high melodrama of *Schindler’s List* and *Saving Private Ryan*) and stare down the abstract darkness of an artificial being (that penultimate postmodern artifact) wrestling with the evolutionary horror that comes with the discovery of the soul. The first 45 minutes of *A.I.* are extraordinary....It was rather odd to watch Spielberg ape Kubrick’s camera-style and lighting preferences, the shots pivoting allusively to scenes in *Clockwork*, *2001*, even *Barry Lyndon*. .... Acting prodigy Haley Joel Osment navigates the early tableaux with a chilling intensity and grace. His portrayal of a young replicant manufactured to be innocent, sweet, and cushy, but by the end is capable of rage, violence, and murder (a mecha programmed to love, to truly love, is by definition programmed to hate), is a canonical achievement. From the close-up of David’s foot stepping experimentally onto the parquet floor of his adoptive home, to the quite moving forest scene when Monica screams “I’m sorry I never told you about the world!”, Osment suspends our disbelief. The rivalry between David and the family’s “real” son Martin (who awakens from a cryogenic coma) is precious and cruel and a pleasure to watch. We see that David is an object manufactured for the absorption of human cruelty, just as one is prone to kick a modern appliance when it remits on its product specifications. David is that trendy bit of techno-kitsch we adore at first, then throw in the back of the closet (or in this case, the bottom of the ocean). But by the time he goes on the run with Gigolo Joe, the film gets increasingly silly. Spielberg pushes hard for an edgy, dangerous, future-shocked feel.... ....When David and Joe arrive in Rouge City (e.g. Las Vegas meets EPCOT Center meets Camden, New Jersey), the viewer finds himself sitting through another humdrum set-piece, as if the succulent eye-candy of an expensive FX metropolis is sufficient to reward the viewer’s time .... But it is the last 45 minutes of *A.I.* that matter as much as the first, a chilling thought-experiment that strives to be worthy of Kubrick’s original vision. David struggles with the now-familiar existential terrors of the “mecha” or replicant, wrestling against the well-intentioned cruelties of his creators, just as the ancient Gnostics wrestled against the creationist horrors perpetuated by an insane Demiurge. If human beings were “designed” by nature, and must stoically bear the cross of the Darwinian nightmare encoded into our makeups, then a self-conscious A.I. created by the human race may likewise be forced to play out the sublimated perversities of our darkest ends. Spielberg pushes all the right buttons, as David crams a double-helping of *Bildungsroman* into barely half an hour of screen time (echoing the scene in *Toy Story* when Buzz Lightyear, thinking himself a singular and distinct force in the world, is struck dumb by an assembly-line of replicants, awaiting shipment in their boxes). His childlike fixation on the Blue Fairy, obscuring the soul-on-ice reality-testing so characteristic of artificial humans, is the decisive glory (and eternal punishment) wired into David’s silicon soul. This is the ultimate beauty of Osment’s character, when David becomes an ageless creature outside of time, a pure liquid vessel and recording-device for the fantasias of an extinct humanity. .... The closing sequence of the film is calculated to get our Kleenex out, but the deeper ironies of David’s situation resonate beyond the melodramatic surface of the narrative, stirring dark depths. I figure Spielberg *had* to be aware, on some level, of the beautifully dark counter-harmonies this film sets into motion, with David veering between a paradisal post-apocalyptic alien sanctuary and the dark music of Kubrick’s diabolical spheres. *A.I.*, after all, is the spiritual sequel to *2001*, and the sense of cosmic solitude and remoteness is handled with deep reverence and solemnity. I mean, the epilogue may run longer than Morgan Freeman piddling around as a geriatric parolee in *The Shawshank Redemption*, but is well worth it, I assure you. Despite my reservations, I would recommend *A.I.* even to those I *know* would revile it, just for a glimpse of the Kubrickian effigy that brims beneath the surface, an echo of the Starchild’s frozen stare in the metacosmic womb-tomb.
Rating: 
Summary: Bo-ring
Review: Yes, the effects were spectacular, Yes, Haley Joel is amazing.... This was a boring film - no spark, no life. ....Trusting the audience to come to its own conclusions? AI bangs us over the head with obvious moral questions, and keeps banging, and banging. Everything was so spelled out for me, my brain could relax and enter a pleasant slumber. The characters were two dimensional, and even though I tried to care about them, I couldn't muster the strength. I was really excited about this picture, but was sorely disappointed. ....
Rating:
Summary: I don't know what to think
Review: I literally don't. This movie was, well, odd. I can see it being an oscar winner; it has that air to it. Haley Joel Osment was wonderful, and so was Jude Law. I just... I dunno. The movie was good, but I didn't enjoy it. Is that possible? The end was a tad bit bizarre, I'll admit that. ....I mean, they did a great job with it and everything, but I didn't exactly care for it. I didn't cry (unlike most people, who were bawling), and my favorite characters were teddy and Gigolo Joe (Whadaya know? lol). So I really have no clue what to say to you people; you'll just have to decide on this one for yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Will be a great collegiate art film
Review: This movie is way too long. Just about every scene contains somewhere between 5 & 25% of the material that could have been edited out without the story or the symbolism suffering. David is left in the bottom of the pool while his "brother" is rescued. And he's left there. And he's left there. We get what you're saying Stephen, get on with the next point! I thought the movie was coming to end, glanced at my watch and discovered I still had a half hour to go. My thought was "what can they do now? Essentially what Spielberg did was then stuck another half hour quasi-sequal movie on the end that was just just as laborous as the first two hours. My wife picked this movie out for her birthday. She can pretty much sit through any dreck. The credits started rolling and as everyone is standing up my wife says "that was way too long." A half hour later she's still shaking her head. This movie was based on a short story. Maybe it should have been left in its original length.
Rating: 
Summary: Unusual and long
Review: A.I. is a very creative, but unusual for it's genre. A.I. is filled with terrific performances from Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, and Frances O' Connor. Warning, this film may become boring because of it's 2 1/2 hour length. Speilberg does a great job with bringing Kubrick's image and visionary style to the screen. I liked this film, but thought it could have been cut down, because some scenes were not needed. The only thing that made me a little bored was the length of the film. This film really is a love story in a sci-fi genre, because of David wanting to become a real boy, and to be loved. The love story is what really keeps this film going. The visual effects are great, as well as the superb score from John Williams. Speilberg does a great job with the direction. Haley Joel Osment should be nominated for Best Actor, as well as Frances O' Connor for Supporting Actress. Overall, I liked this film because of it's strong story line, but this film should have been shorter. Great job Mr. Speilberg, as well as Haley Joel Osment.
Rating:
Summary: When you thought it couldn't get worse...
Review: it did. The story was interesting, and it had some cool special effects, but all in all, it was a confused mess of emotions. I was angry, sad, and depressed all at once. It was like they wrote two endings and smashed them together. All the preformences were great, each taking you into their head. They really gave you a feel for everyone... Basically, after the 5 minutes of the movie ending, i just sat there and cried and I tried to figure out if i was really okay w/ the fact it was a happy ending. Why, then, was I crying do you say? Because it all came at once. First, a sad and disturbing ending. Then, a calm and happy one. Well, as you've heard from the other reviews, it could have ended MUCH faster. I don't reccomend this movie for anyone under 13. For once, I agree w/ the rating system. It was sad, disturbing, and at times unappropriate. See it for yourself.
Rating:
Summary: Title only half true
Review: The title of the movie is only half true. Indeed, the film is "artificial," but there is no sign of "intelligence." Or warmth, or compassion. (Although there are artificial versions of the warmth & compassion, they are nothing but a false, paper thin veneer.) On the good side, it has some great special effects and the quality of the acting ranges from competent to outstanding. But nothing can overcome the miserable and meandering plot line or the lugubrious pace of the last half of the movie. Spielburg resorts to all of his standard tricks, (the cute cuddly bear-type character, the big evil authorities shot from low angles, the backlighting, an infinite number of sappy sentimenatl Norman Rockwell shots) but they seem cobbled together without reference to the story line and they all seem phoned in. He paints himself into a corner and then relies upon a hopelessly contrived deus ex machina to save his machina. What is worse, is the moral themes don't hold any water. Few of the characters (including the boy) have any real humanity. They are all extremely selfish and destructive and unlovable. My wife, 13 year old daughter and I went together. No similarity in our tastes except for the fact that we each independently came away thinking this thing stunk. Save your money.
Rating: 
Summary: A little here,a little from there.
Review: Have you read Mary Shelly's Frankenstein? Sorry,watching Boris Karloff in one of those old flicks does not count. Did you like I.E.?Do you like the movie style of Stanley Kubrick?You know "2001","Clockwork Orange"etc.etc.Do you like a good modern fairy tale? Are you into the possibility of robots helping us run the World? Yes to these questions and you will like this wonderful film by Steven Spielberg.Oh yes,bring tissue cause it's a tearjerker ... Reviwed by Carl Banholzer
Rating:
Summary: Booooooooorring
Review: Stupid and boring. We were doing a movie marathon and decided to see AI first. The experience was so bad that we cut marathon short and went to Blockbuster. I can't begin to tell you how many people got up and walked out. A wasted Saturday afternoon.
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