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A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Widescreen Special Edition)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Widescreen Special Edition)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: At moments a little Spielbergesque but very good
Review: Steven Spielberg's AI is a very thought provoking movie. The performance by Haley Joel Osment is excellent. Judd Law also offers a very good supporting role as a luvbot, Giggalo Joe. Based on the story of Pinnochio this movie explores a possible future in which robots take the step from machine intelligence to the realm of emotional intelligence. At times the movie can be corny but essentially it is moving tale of awakening, loss, a journey, finding and then losing again. In addition, there are many fine cinematic touches which are reminescent of Stanley Kubrick to whom the movie was dedicated. Perhaps not destined to become a "Blade Runner" nevertheless, in many respects A.I. explores in much greater depth the moral conflicts which may arise as machine intelligence becomes a reality.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Worth a Watch
Review: A year after having seen it, I still don't quite know how I feel about A.I.

As it begins, human dependency on technology reaches it's limit as the first artificial child is created. A couple grieving the comatose state of their boy become the test parents of the droid child, David.
David and his mother start to become disturbingly attached when a miracle happens and the couple's son recovers. The inevitable happens and David unintentionally almost accidentaly kills his "brother". It is obvious that David must go, but unable to bring herself to send him to the scrapheap, his mother sets him adrift in the woods instead. Hunted by furious humans outraged at the extent of droid mimicry of life, David latches on to Gigolo Joe, a droid prostitute. Recalling the Pinocchio story his mother read him, David decides that all his problems will be solved if he just becomes a real boy, and sets out to find the Blue Fairy with an at first reluctant but then enthusiastic Joe doing his best to watch over him.
Of course, this is not Pinocchio - and their quest becomes increasingly nightmarish as they head towards different but equally tragic fates.
The amazing thing about the film is that we start to like David and Joe more than the humans in the film and start to worry about what will happen to them, which is the point. Are we, like David's mother, reacting to their (especially David's) outward appearance of humanity, or have they become more human than the people in the film?
Osment and Law, as David and Joe, are amazing and have to be seen to be believed. David's raw emotion is nicely balanced by Joe's cynicism (for example, in the scene when a well meaning Joe's cruel-to-be-kind attempt to shake David into reality by insisting that David means no more to his mother than Joe means to his clients is met by the immovable mountain of David's faith in his relationship with his mother). They are also both - and this is important - scary - David in his obsession and capacity for anger (the other side of real love - hmm...) and Joe in his very function's potential for destroying the capacity of human emotional attachment, as well as his eerie insight into humanity's worst instincts (real intelligence?). It's also fascinating watching them transcend their programming (notice, for instance, Joe's increasing tendency to put a protective arm around David's shoulder in dangerous or new situations as the movie progresses. Both are complemented by David's other companion, his "brother's" Teddy - a representation of what people think robots should be as opposed to the problematic, more complicated droids like David and Joe.
But there are problems. Steven Spielberg took over the project from Stanley Kubrik, and the result is somewhat schizophrenic. At times, you don't know if you're watching an E.T.-like fairy tale or a Clockwork Orange-like apocalypse - and I don't mean that in a good way.
See it once for the performance of the two leads, the great special effects and the thought-provoking parts of the story on a day you feel up to it's intensely bleak tone.
Also, keep in mind that this is really not child appropriate due to David's ultra-realistic reaction to his abandonment, some of Joe's scenes, and the notorious "Flesh Fair" sequence, which is extremely disturbing even though you know the victims aren't human.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The best movie of 2001 and one of speilbergs best
Review: I first found out about his movie nearly two years before its release. When i read the plot to it and saw the director i knew it would be a great movie. I saw it the fist day because i could not wait any longer to see. After it was over i realized it was worth the wait. This is one of speilbergs best. Although it was very long it still kept me interested throughout the entire movie. This movie deserves to win best picture at the academy awards and it wasnt even nominated. I recomend any spielberg fan to buy this movie. Trust me its worth the money.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Another Opinion
Review: I thought A.I. was beautifully filmed and the acting was great-Jude Law was OSCARĀ® worthy. Although many people seemed to think the "Post Apocolyptic Pinochicco Story"was slow,and lacked focus,I thought it was pretty good. And I thought the point of the story- if there was one-Was the general apathy of humanity. How little we seem to care about anything,(The enviornment,other humans.)In the way they use"Mechas" Ultimately expressed in the creation of an artificial "child" capable of love who will outlive his human "parents"(Then what?)- Which raises the question-"What is our obligation to the creation(s) of our genius?" But then, I could have just missed the whole point of the movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: They were kidding, right?
Review: This has to be one of the worst movies I've seen on the big screen. Or, actually, three of the worst movies, because it seemed to be three somewhat irrelevant movies patched together. The first was actually relatively engaging and dark--the Pinnocchio tale of a mechanical boy given to a family to replace a terminally comatose child. Then--Ta-DUM!--the original boy miraculously recovers, and the second movie, an overblown and disturbingly bad story of a runaway on a quest, ensues. And later comes the third. I wouldn't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen it (as if I could spoil it !), but let's just say I laughed aloud. A few minutes later, when I realized they really WEREN'T kidding, I became terribly depressed... I would have bailed at that point, if I hadn't been glued to the floor by a year-old puddle of coke. Chewing my leg off to get free wasn't an option, unfortunately, because I'm a vegetarian.

Frankly, I can't imagine anything a DVD could add to this flick. Unless...Perhaps there's a track that features Haley Joel Osment, confessing that aliens kidnapped him and sucked him into this project. Or maybe Jude Law, who actually did look like he was enjoying himself up there, laughing all the way to the bank. Or maybe Steven Spielberg...

Naw.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: SPIELBERG CHANNELS KUBRICK -- BAD CONNECTION
Review: In "A.I." Steven Spielberg attempts to channel Stanley Kubrick, but the connection is bad. What makes this cutting edge cinematic achievement all the more frustrating is the central, sad, notion that at a far distant time, humans and human love is a lost, totally alien concept. Kubrick was among the greatest of filmmakers. His unique visions, made with engineering-like precision, were often subjectively cool, cynical, ironic, journies of discovery or dissolution. Speilberg's like a master forger whose work exceeds the original. But the two directors' personal proclivities do not mix well in this odd tale about a spiritually cold future. The two disc set has new featurettes on all the primary creative and technical elements. But all the bonus material does not make up for the one missing thing that screams for an answer: What is Kubrick's contribution and what did Spielberg bring to Brian Aldiss's story "Super-toys Last All Summer Long"? This would be a great DVD if Speilberg had deigned to speak to the masses of devotees that gather before the cold light of plasma and cathode ray altars seeking transcendence.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Dare to be different -- try something rich and unusual
Review: A.I. is not for all tastes - it's not a pulse-pounding popcorn movie, so if you liked Pearl Harbor or Jurassic Park III, look elsewhere - but I must dispel some of the nonsense posted here. A lack of "likable" characters is the case for nearly all of Stanley Kubrick's output, and a good deal of that of the greatest directors. They're after deeper levels of life, which yield more unusual pleasures and insights than the comforts of "likable". The character of David does, in fact, conquer challenges through effort - he survives the Flesh Fair by pleading for his life like a human child, rather than submit to destruction like the other robots. Taking him for human - the whole intent of his makers - the Flesh Fair crowd spares him. David yearns for the woman he has been programmed to love - making him no different from any child - and he will pursue her through the millennia because he cannot grow old, or disillusioned. He achieves maturity, or humanity, when he is willing to settle for a single day of her resurrection, never thereafter to see her again. If people are put off by the film's unconventional picaresque structure, they probably felt the same upon first seeing Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey or Full Metal Jacket, whose seemingly disjunct three acts actually followed a progression beyond their foreground melodramas to tell a larger, and deeper, story. The story here is not the lifelike capabilities of robots, but the more disturbing and uncomfortable limitations of we humans, who are no less hard-wired to pursue our needs than is David, yet able to learn as we explore - the definition of artificial intelligence. Anime fans, check out the pilot episode of the original Astro Boy cartoon - the parallels with A.I. are amazing. Both works challenge our belief in human specialness and ask whether it is the mere appearance of appealing qualities that matters. The fact that David's abandonment so angered viewers suggests the answer. If he's no more human than a washing machine, who cares? But he passes the Turing test - as do we, biological computers that we are. We are programmed to be horrified when a mother abandons what SEEMS to be a child. Spielberg and Kubrick have, deftly, won their bet, and made us believe. Critic Roger Ebert was unique in being unmoved by this scene, because David is a robot. But this is an intellectual reaction, made in resistance to the pull of emotion - for Haley Joel Osment is brilliant in a tricky role, and scandalously overlooked by the Motion Picture Academy - no male adult wants the competition for the lead Oscar, obviously. If you're ready for something challenging, subtly complicated, melancholy, wistful and haunting, open your mind and go where the film leads. There's nothing wrong with dreaming as David dreams. Yeah, there's less action than in Blade Runner, which dealt in similar issues. Yeah, the teenage guys in the first audience I saw it with laughed uncomfortably at the slightest pretext, their girlfriends were dabbing tears away when the film ended. So were my wife and I -- personal resonance with some scenes -- and we saw it five times.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: bad movie
Review: This movie was ver steroetypical. Though the graphics were quite amazing, the story was just horrible, and quite depresseing at times. The caracters wree very unlikable, and the constant annoyance of the kid almost made me want to get up and leave. This move was very poorly written, and just dragged on for the 3 hours or so. Speilberg tried to make this an epic movie, but he failed. I don't even reccomend renting it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A pearl for the swine
Review: Having seen A.I. in the theater a couple of times, I was surprised to see some low reviews here, just quickly glancing at the stars-out-of-five. But then I read the text of them, and it became clear. A note of caution about this film: It is subtle. If your idea of great cinema is the type of movie that Jean-Claude van Damme or Will Smith might star in, you probably won't much care for A.I. This is a film for a patient, contemplative audience with a good bit of knowledge in the areas of history, sociology and biology. If you thought A Clockwork Orange was rubbish, don't bother with this movie. If you thought Eyes Wide Shut "wasn't very good for soft porn", you will not like A.I. If your response to the question, "Read any interesting books lately?" is "yeah, the sports pages", then don't waste your money on this DVD. You will hate it.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: This is not a Kubrick film
Review: This is not a Kubrick film. A Clockwork Orange and 2001 are Kubrick films. Casting a dark, brooding and a baleful eye upon humanity, Kubrick was a master moralist, depicting humanities excesses and the horrible extremes to which they could lead. While this movie has Kubrick undertones, it is after all billed as a combination of both Spielberg and Kubrick, the film quickly descends into a sugary, ET-ish drive to go home. Please do not desecrate Kubrick's reputation by listing this as his movie or claiming that this movie went over the audiences heads. Spielberg went straight for the heartstrings with this gooey, botch job of a good Kubrick idea.


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