Rating: 
Summary: A.I. Artificial Intelligence
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Kids under the age of 15 should not go see this film.
Review: None of the reviews that I've read make a reference to another nuance in this film; the robots are treated the way our society treats others not deemed to be part of 'normal' society; the misfits, the gay people, the not so slim folks. The pool side scene with the kids made me cringe; I could imagine kids hassling a gay companion that way. Also: who in their right mind would allow a child to sit and watch the red necks pouring acid on etc. and other wise mutilating robots? I had to turn my face when the nanny was being murdered. Too much. This is Spielberg? I do not want to go see another one of his movies if this is characteristic of his work. I for sure would check a movie of his out before I would allow a child to see one of his.
Rating:
Summary: thanks stanley for bringing speilberg back
Review: we can thank the late stanley kubrick for resurrecting spielberg the artist because it was with this film that spielberg finally returned to his ' i am not going to cater to the mass audience ' aesthetics.
looking at the films that have followed (minority report,catch me if you can etc) indicates that spielberg is returning to form and not giving into the 'accountant director's temptations'.
this film is beautiful, haunting, distrubing and relentess in not giving into mass audience whims and looking at the plethora of mixed reviews for A.I i'd say, he did well.
as the old saying goes ' if everyone likes it, you know you've done something wrong'.
challenging.
Rating: 
Summary: "I'm a real live boy!"
Review: 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!"
Rating: 
Summary: Uh, well, it's pretty I guess ....
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Some missing elements
Review: Stephen Spielberg would have done better with a willingness to make a longer movie out of A.I. Artificial Intelligence. There was so much more that could have been done with this fine idea for a film. This is somewhat out of the normal genre for a Spielberg film, being the byproduct of a Stanley Kubrick idea. Unfortunately, Mr. Kubrick passed away before much collaboration between him and Mr. Spielberg could take place.
Haley Joel Osment is, in keeping with his abilities, wonderfully convincing in this role. His acting is so innocent and pure that it is difficult to believe that the boy in the movie and the boy that is playing him are really separate. The supporting work performed by Jude Law is outstanding and provides a much needed comic aspect to the film. Most of the other supporting acting is forgettable, with small parts being assigned to relative unknowns.
Special effects and set design is engaging. Makeup and costume is believable. The soundtrack is superb, as John Williams lends his considerable talent to this film. Cinematography and directoral styling is clean, typical of a Spielberg product. The one area of needed improvement would be in film flow. There are a number of scenes that could use more material, more dialogue. It feels as though there was too much film that got left on the editing booth floor.
In the end, this "Pinocchio" story is entertaining and evokes emotion in many of the most jaded viewers. Recommended for fans of fairy tale stories.
Rating:
Summary: its about time steven
Review: steven, you're an artist again.
congratulations. you almost lost the way.
in this one you remembered your roots, your influences (kubrick of course) and you didnt cater to the brain dead masses who cant appreciate beauty, truth, and enigma in one package (sounds like the desciption of a bruckner symphony doesn't it?)
and they didn't appreciate this one either. they came out, scratched their heads and wondered what that was all about.
an not suprisingly, the acadamy awards didn't appreciate it either, but then, isn't that one and the same?
p.s.
don't lose your way again.
Rating:
Summary: SERIOUSLY FLAWED
Review: At least part of the scientific community has an intense interest in the possibility of artificial intelligence and that interest is reflected as an obsession among some science fiction writers and devotees. I have a casual relationship at best with the sciences myself and I generally find science fiction not to my taste. There are exceptions. I thought "Blade Runner" was one of the finest films made. But I emphasize that "Blade Runner" is an exception in my book. "Blade Runner" rises above much of the rest of science fiction because although the film seems to be about robots it is clear by the end the film is a mediation on the human condition in the face of death. The problem with A.I. is that there is no such reflection on the human condition; instead, the concern is about the future welfare for the fantastic machines we may build in the future. Many in the scientific community believe that people are essentially "walking machines"-fantastic "machines"-but "machines" nonetheless. What is meant by this is the rejection of any notion of a "spirit" which animates the body. We are simply collections of atoms which evolved over great stretches of time-a complex amalgam of conditioned stimulus and response reactions. Moreover, it is believed that consciousness and thinking as we commonly think of them are really illusions-they are no more than physical chemical interactions within the body. In fact, the notion we have of something called "I" is also just an illusion. There really is no "I" and educated men and women really shouldn't take the concept seriously except as a way of speaking. Philosophically, this is known as "radical materialism". If you accept these premises, then one can believe it is possible to one day create a "thinking/feeling" machine, which very much resembles a human being. Indeed, such a machine could one day be regarded as very much the same thing as a human being. And why not? If one assumes that there is no "ghost" in the machines we call human beings then we can dispense with any concern that these fantastic machines we will build may need a "soul" to be regarded as "real" beings. Thus since we will be essentially equal we need to care about their dignity and well being. In science fiction we as the reader just have to accept that certain assertions in the text are "just so". But when a serious "real world" message is being made we have to question the foundations that message is laid upon. Much has been made of the similarity between the story in Artificial Intelligence and the story of Pinocchio. But a comparison of the two stories only shows how different they are. In A.I., David is made by human beings. David is much like other robots these humans have made except he is programmed to have "feelings" and "affections". David's dependence and love for his human "mother" are imprinted and programmed in-once so imprinted it is irreversible. David's "human mother" is essentially "his" as long as David exists. If something goes wrong and David's human parents no longer want him, he must be returned to the manufacturer to be deactivated. In Pinocchio, a wooden puppet is made to live by a magical spiritual being. Although it is not explicitly stated, we understand that the wooden Pinocchio has been given a spirit or soul. Pinocchio's affections and feelings do not have to be programmed in because they are real aspects of his soul. Both Pinocchio and David want to be real boys. Both feel deprivation with the separation from their "human parents". The message of Artificial Intelligence seems to be we should be very careful in building artificial beings because we may develop creatures who are essentially like us except we will feel free to subjugate them and submit them to inhuman cruelties. Pinocchio's message in part is a Christian one. It's message is that our human failings lie not in our "flesh" as the Gnostics believe but in our souls. Because Pinocchio had a soul he was "real" and he was capable of real human failings and greatness. In Christianity, wood is a symbol for man. The Great Carpenter fashions men to His purposes. Human beings have long had a fondest for their tools. While men and women often treasure their tools and inventions, they have never regarded them as equals to themselves. If one believes the only beings that really matter are those with spirits or souls, it is unclear why we should care about "machines" with the intensity Spielberg and company want us to. Moreover, there are serious doubts that "artificial intelligence" as they mean it is possible. The message of the film is that like an unwanted baby it would be better if such a "thinking/feeling machine" were never brought into the world. But the more serious question is is the "lack" in that unwanted "baby/machine" or is it is our hearts? Exploring that question would have given us a far different film.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic Spielbrick film
Review: I did not see this film in theater (myloss) because of the bad reviews it got from "movie critics" However, I was fortunate to receive it on DVD as a gift. It would have made Issac Asimov, "I Robot", proud. This was a great movie from plot to cinematology to music. True, it is based on an old fairy tale, but is much, much, more. It is a story of human failings and desires stretched to a futuristic limit. With Spielberg, I expected a lot of fantastic special effects, but became so engrossed in the story that I missed them along the way. My wife left the room in tears, no less than 3 times during the movie, and I am glad, so that she wouldn't see mine. Even my 84 year old Dad liked it and he normally watches only old westerns. Who is truly human in this movie? The people or the robots? Watch it and decide for yourself. It is well worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Uneven
Review: A.I. is one of those coulda-woulda-shoulda movies. I love Steven Spielberg and I've never believed that he deserved the bad rap he had among "serious" filmmakers as simply a popcorn moviemaker, but there are points in his career where even admirers have to admit that he goes over the line when it comes to sentimentality and sappiness. Sometimes it works (as in E.T. although I guess I'm the one person who didn't care for it) and sometimes it doesn't (as in Hook). Even in those cases, there are plenty of things about the films that make them at least worth a viewing, but A.I. is the first Spielberg film where I just couldn't wait for it to be over. For those who may disagree, let me just say first that I did indeed "get it". That aside, I found the film to be tedious and pedantic and running at least 30 minutes longer than it needed to. Yes, it's a simple story but it doesn't mean that the characters can't have nuances and devices to make them more than just the one-dimensional characters they were. Okay, you could argue, but they were supposed to be - they were robots. That's true too, but Jude Law stands out as the truly memorable character because, even though he was a robot, he showed that he could respond to the situations around him more convincingly. So why did I give three stars instead of two or one? Because Spielberg, in his genius, still managed to hook me and get me to react emotionally to David's plight. I can't remember the last time I saw a sci-fi tearjerker. I suppose if were a little younger and single I might have reacted differently, but being a parent can't help but force reactions to a boy who is abandoned by his family and spends the rest of the film trying to get them back. This is also a common Spielberg theme and, as mentioned previously, sometimes he makes it work and sometimes he doesn't. I hated myself for falling for it, but sometimes you tip your hat to the filmmaker for pulling it off. Also, as is typical with Spielberg, the effects are tremendous. Although it's fantasy, everything appears plausible and realistic. True dyed-in-the-wool sci-fi fans will probably enjoy this film more than I did. I can't help wondering what it would have been like had Kubrick made it himself.
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