Rating: 
Summary: Frankenstein Revisited
Review: This film is at its heart a retelling of the Frankenstein story. It's about people who create life because they can, without regard to the feelings of the creation. When the creators change their minds about what they have done, the creation is abandoned to an emotional limbo. The message is hard to miss, but just in case, a minor character spells it out at the beginning of the film.Not only is the didacticism annoying, but haven't we seen this plot before in a very bad TV show called Small Wonder? Even worse, this film starts out as hardcore science fiction, then about three-quarters of the way through, jarringly switches to a fairy tale. It's like having your roller coaster car suddenly stop in the middle of a downhill turn, and become "It's a small world after all." Both are legitimate approaches to storytelling, but they don't work cobbled together like this. However, Haley Joel Osment, a fabulously talented child actor, manages to remain in character even when this dastardly switch is pulled on him. The film is watchable aside from all its problems because of this boy. That's a lot of responsibilty for someone not even out of elementary school, and he deserves absolutely all the praise heaped on him. So whether or not I can recommend this film depends on what a reader is looking for. If you will be satisfied watching a kid pull off a beautiful performance most adults couldn't manage under the circumstances, by all means see it. If you're looking for science fiction, forget it. If you want pandering to your emotions, as in E.T., see the film. If you want to see Stanley Kubrick at his best, again, don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: mixed reviews: here's my 2 cents
Review: I have grown so accustomed to Hollywood being intellectually condescending to its audience that I hardly noticed it in this film. Almost every Hollywood schlock shoves a blatant message in the audience's face, then spells it out for them. It kind of reminds me of 80's sitcoms, at the end of each episode then the mood gets "really serious", and the synthesizer mood music kicks in as the sitcom father delivers "the more you know" crap to his son who went bowling without permission. But, I will not categorize A.I. quite so harshly. I really really enjoyed this film on a certain level. In fact, it's sort of the type of thing I've been waiting for from Hollywood. Hardcore Kubrick fanatics won't like it because of Speilberg's soft edge. (I refer to A.I. as "Kubrick lite") And average movie watchers who are just looking for an entertaining popcorn movie will find it too Kubrickly twisted. At least, that's what I got from my friends who saw it. Typical responses were sort of muddled. A typical statement would be, "What? What the crap was that?" It's a bit too weird to capture a broad general audience. But this odd category that A.I. falls into is exactly what I like about it. It could have easily been a sappy Hallmark film, but it has a bit more depth to it. It has an alluring mystery quality that keeps you hanging on. I think a PG-13 would have been better than PG, but that's just me. I'm not really sure what they were trying to prove by rating it PG. Kids definitely would not enjoy this film. Kubrick for kids? Not quite. I think the overall messages of the film are not muddled like so many films of today that try to self-righteously make statements about the condition of man. (Ahem,...um..."Matrix Reloaded", anyone?) Rather, it's sort of a "what-if" play pretend scenerio that imaginatively offers one possibility of the long-term dangers of worshipping science and technology. I wish I could go into more detail about performances, Jude Law, Robin Williams, Speilberg, Kubrick, Hale Osmont, but I'll keep this fairly to the point. I think this film is well written, it's interesting, and the special effects are stupendous and flawless. I also want to make a special note that one of the things that sold me on this film is the brilliant and astounding conclusion. Just when you think the film is over, and everything is concluding nicely, it goes the extra mile! It gracefully expands the story to show the scenerio 2000 years into the future. Just when you think the film is over, new bizarre characters are introduced (ultra post-modern artificial intelligence beings with subtitles) that take the film to a whole new level of daring dreamworld. That's what most of my friends complained about. ("What was that ending?!?") But, I'm just a low-budget college student who enjoys watching films that go to the next level in certain areas. This film did for me. Peace out.
Rating: 
Summary: Love it or hate it...
Review: ...although it seems more people hate this movie. What bothers me though, is how people proclaim a movie either 'good or bad' rather than 'liked it or didn't like it'. Like all of a sudden they're the experts on film and have the authority to state absolute facts about a movies worth. I will neither state AI as 'good or bad'....I will simply say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Everything you've heard is true. This IS a futuristic story of Pinnochio. It's a fake boy on a quest to become a real boy. Along the way he meets his Jiminy Cricket (a robotic male prostitute played by Jude Law) who agrees to help him in his quest. Some very patient viewers might see the wonderfully hidden underlying themes that relate to our own society and the philisophical nature of simply 'being'. I'd recommend this movie to anyone....however, heed the warning in my title. This is definately a 'love it or hate it' situation.
Rating: 
Summary: This Movie Just sucks
Review: You know i would give this movie a -1 rating if they had it on the list of how you rate the movie but they don't. At first you think that the movie will be good because of the beginning of the movie. The beginning is good but then is slowly starts to get worse and worse. This retarded robot goes on some kind of quest to find the disney fairy from the movie pinnoccio so he can be turnned into a real boy because he read in some book that it was possible so that he can get back with his mother. Insted of him excepting himself for what he is and trying to get back with his mother he trys to be something he is not. Insted of this movie being something like a quest for him to get back to his mother it is a quest about him trying to do something that isn't even possible. Kinda like watching a movie about a man that wants to learn how to fly without wings so he keeps jumping off cliffs hopeing that he'll fly insted of him just finding logical way to learn how to fly like the Wright brothers. Basicly this movie is a waste of money and most of all time. If i ever bought this movie i would throw it away the same day i bought it or a i would take it back.
Rating:
Summary: A 451 Nation CANNOT appreciate AI...or Fear it
Review: Reviews of AI are polarized because the film is a "mirror". It reflects what IS; not what viewers wish. AI refers not only to ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, but to our PM(Deconstructionist)Culture of Death--lacking Spirit--needing Artificial Heart to revitalize pathetic Yuppie materialism and PC dynamics(pseudo-ethics).That Robots (replicants/Mechas)HAVE heart...and Spirit...and are hated for it,is unsubtle irony. That a Wacko-Techo Culture aborting its real children(Ours not AI's PINOCCHIO Land)to the metric of 1.5 million/year for the past 30,finds "murdering" Mechas boring; aesthetically repugnant or incomprehensible is hardly suprising. Spielberg's rendering of FLESH FAIRs requires minimal literary sensibility to recognize(Roman/Neronic)BREAD & CIRCUSES decadence for radical Evil it evokes... In FAHRENHEIT 451,Ray Bradbury describes a PC/Fascist future awaiting Civilization determined to deny Christian-Humanist roots and means to preserve (or even transform)it.Our incipient 451 Nation--culture of illiterates, cosseted by elite of Grand Inquisitors and narcissistic lackies(The electronic Media)has begun to technologically breed a Truly Homosexual Society where human qualities as capacity for courage;truth;and Love will be reduced to Carnival GOODIES to look-at.FAMILY Relationality will be replaced by VIRTUAL FAMILIES(if you're "GOOD" the Supreme Court will let you have one too)! Rarely do(AMERICAN)films probe the heart with dexterity,depth and FEAR & TREMBLING of AI:Artificial Intelligence. This movie is a masterpiece of PM cinematic mythology. HALEY JOEL OSMENT and company bring jolting dramatic INTELLIGENCE to a cautionary fable of Culture so afraid of emotion and responsiblity-in-love(in the film)it hates Machines having this capacity.As well as(in viewing Audience)hating being shown ourselves both lacking these capacities,and remorse at this lack (How long have YOU supported slaughter of innocent children, but been offended by smoking?)... AI isn't for all "Parents". But it is...like fairy tales of the Past...for all children.AI is a reckoning with Yuppie materialist culture. It's also technically superlative film making. This is the movie"existentially" Unchurched need to see.While it will NOT restore Faith in Man,it may challenge you to recall where, and in what, your Faith SHOULD be. Or: stir FEAR of the 451 fascist-Priesthood which will ultimately install itself as "gods" of AF:ARTIFICIAL FREEDOM...(7 Stars)
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg has become tendentious and sentimental
Review: Unfortunately for fans of Spielberg's earlier work, this movie is a tendentious ode to sentiment. I'm not sure of the point of the movie (perhaps we are to marvel at Jude Law's comic talents while trying to emulate a robot??) If that is the intent, count me a fan because Law makes me crack up, but I would be surprised if that really was all Spielberg tried to convey in this overwrought movie. Rent the movie if only to see Law at his comic best; otherwise, there ain't much of interest here.
Rating:
Summary: Even robots should not watch this...
Review: If you share my, and countless others', admiration for Stanley Kubrick's remarkable body of work, you might also be lured into viewing this film, if only to sate a justifiable curiosity. However, this film has virtually nothing to do with Kubrick and everything to do with Spielberg, which is to say everything to do with cloying sentimentality, a simplistic and immature take on morality, and nothing to do with a serious investigation of the human condition.
*
I'm afraid I found nothing redeeming about this film. It would be in a way better if it were billed as Pinocchio 2, but even then it would be a poor sequel. The emotional world of all the adult characters is ugly. Without the aid of the hyperbolic musical score and manipulative cinematography it would be difficult to know whether Spielberg was aiming to represent anything resembling real love. The love depicted here is not worthy of even a robot. Also, aAs is virtually invariably the case in Hollywood movies, sex is represented in a very negative and competitive way - there is nothing celebratory or joyous here. I also found the performances of the Osmond and Law less than interesting, although the blame should be laid squarely at the self-satisfied feet of the director.
*
If you have only seen Kubrick's more celebrated later work, 2001 and the films thereafter, then I'd beg you not to tarnish your impression of him by viewing AI, but rather seek out his earlier masterpieces, Paths of Glory, Lolita, Spartacus, and the unfortunately all too relevant Dr.Strangelove.
Rating:
Summary: An awful, awful movie
Review: Two things:
1) This definitely goes on my personal 10-worst-movies list.
2) The only good part of this truly, truly awful film is a close-up of Jude Law's eyes.
Rating: 
Summary: Kubrick and Spielberg do not mix
Review: One comes away from this film with the impression that it is trying to say too much, too obviously but not very effectively. By trying to mix Kubrick's more brooding style with Spielberg's E.T. sweetness, we end up with a film trying to balance an incongruous world that is dark and foreboding a la "Bladerunner" where unlicensed AIs can be hunted and killed for amusement yet inhabited by a supporting cast of overbearingly kind to the point of condescension characters. Ultimately this is a story that tries to tell us what it is to be human by having the viewer follow the journey of an artificial boy trying to become one and empathize with him along the way. This theme has been done multiple times (from Bicentennial Man to perhaps 30 episodes devoted to Data on the Star Trek Series.) In that respect, AI provides us with very unconvincing signposts and great difficulty in empathizing. One theme of humanity is of course the ability to feel love, yet not once in this movie do we see indications that the boy David can develop love or even affection on his own for anyone or anything beyond his initial programming to specifically love one person (certainly none for Joe, his robot guide and mentor, or his human family Dad, for example). His increased obsession with that one target makes him appear, if anything, more robotic, like a computer suffering a self-reinforcing feedback loop in programming. That the much, much lower-tech toy bear, seems to be able to develop new attachment and the converse emotion - dislike - for someone on its own, and that Joe's emotion can evolve while David's does not as he almost ruthlessly pursues one goal, leaves one with a rather odd feeling and not much empathy for the lead character. Fear of extinction is also a sign of life, which is true, as all living things from amoebas, let alone humans, have a desire for self-preservation. In case we miss this, the movie gives us a melodramatic scene where a member of the cast actually gets up and says so - loudly. Yet prior to this, we have already witnessed that all robots have a desire for self-preservation, Joe by fleeing a crime-scene, and even the Model-T Ford of robots scrounge for scrap parts and try to evade capture to prolong their right to exist even for one more minute if they could. So we are left wondering what is so special and cutting-edge about David verbalizing his desire to live. This is made worse when the script calls for Joe to show signs of gratitude and relief at the reprieve while the supposedly 'nearer to human' David, despite the rhetoric, does not. Goal seek then is to be interpreted by us, as later pointed out by William Hurt in the movie, as a sign of 'humanity'. Yet goal seek programming that can adjust and modify itself to outside factors are within the capability of the science of today and nothing at all to get excited about in a life/non-life context. That another robot actually shows a willingness to possibly give up his own goal of freedom and self-existence for another's goal while David singularly is unable to do so, makes us feel that the other robot is more 'human' and David is upstaged again. Even at the very flawed-ending, where through deed, speech, tone of voice and accompanying music we are bludgeoned over the head without any subtlety whatsoever in an attempt to force us to see how 'feeling' AIs can eventually be, David shows no gratitude, co-operation, reciprocation or compromise he just wants what he wants - a very robotic response. This is not a reflection of Osment's performance, it is the script. If the movie's intent was to deliver the message that selfishness is the primary initial characteristic of humanity and is trying to convey this moral judgment, then it succeeded. If that was not what we are supposed to interpret, then it failed. Had the movie ended 20 minutes earlier shall we say (without giving away the plot), upon arrival at a certain underwater location, this might have been a 3 star movie that left us mildly unsettled with food for thought afterwards. As it is, fine cinematography, visual effects and another sterling performance by Jude Laws earns it 2 stars
Rating:
Summary: Post-modern Pinocchio story done badly.
Review: "I wanna be a real boy!" The idea of something not quite human striving for humanity is a popular idea that can take all sorts of directions. Unfornuately that direction can sometimes be a bad one. Such is the case with A.I., you can look at the reviews and see most of what would be my compliants. Most positive reviews I've seen are simply looking very throughly for something good to salvage from this wreck of a film. I love Speilberg and Kubrick and I really want something nice to say about this film, but I can't. It's really bad. I know that writing a negative review for what is kind of Kubrick's last work from beyond the grave is kind of low down, but so is lying. I can't recommend this movie.
| 
