Rating: 
Summary: Tribute to Kubrick
Review: This is a wonderfully insightful and well crafted film that asks more questions than it answers, such as: What is humanity, or rather, the essence of humanity? If we are not just skin, bones and blood, what do we as a species have that no other species has: the ability to think abstractly? to influence others? to shape our relationships and to bond with others? Or is it a unique combination of all of these qualities that makes us human? Does David's mother teach him to love, or does David teach his mother to love? This is a breathtakingly beautiful film and one of Speilberg's finest, his tribute to Stanley Kubrick, well worth seeing and thinking about!
Rating:
Summary: Don't Be Scared Because It's "Too Abstract."
Review: I'd just like to start off by saying that I LOVE this movie. It's in my opinion, one of the top 100 best movies of all time. Yes, I know this movie got mixed reviews. You know why? For two reasons; 1)Because people don't get it, and 2)Because it has plot holes and problems. It's really not as complicated as people think it is. There are just some folks among us who don't know their head from a hole in the ground, and that's fine. They can go watch American Pie and leave the good stuff to us. It's SCI-FI! It's not real! Of course there will be plot holes and problems!!! But that's fine, it's not real. It's a fantasy and in SCI-FI anything can happen. That said, I'll get onto what I really thought about this movie. I came into it as a $10 DVD from Cub Foods, it'd be OKAY. For ten bucks, why not? I sat down and immediately was drawn in by the stunning acting but Haley Joel Osment, and to a lesser degree, Jude Law. Even the animatronic bear, Teddy The Super Toy, plays a vital role at some points. Plus he's really cute in a movie filled with dark/harsh futureness, and that's cool. (I actually contemplated sending Steven Spielberg and extra $20 because it was worth the full price.)Every scene just makes you question the humanity of David more and more. Is he meerly a robot(mecha)? OR does he want to become a real boy, and doesn't the fact that he wants to become a boy, make him human enough to be a boy? After all, he did many many unantisipated things, even beyond the boundaries of his programming. This is a great topic for discussion. Could we really love a robot? Yes, I believe so. If it looked and acted as wonderful and David. But is it ethical? In the grand scheme, each scene is so different and poignant with a point to make, and David's journey to find The Blue Fairy is sad and happy simultaniously. I was in tears during the last 45 minutes and during the moving 15 minute epilogue as well.
Yes, it could have been cut off after the submergence scene, but I feel the epilogue really was an emotional release that was necessary and beautiful. It's excellent when movies have somewhat happy endings. This is a movie that changed me. It became a part of my emotions and the way I see the world. It's such a vision, it's a shame I (and others) stayed away this long. I'd recommend it to everyone. If you see it, and don't understand it...well, go ask your smartest looking friend. No doubt they could expound on the virtues of this destined and astonishing piece of film history, flop or not!
Rating:
Summary: Remarkable, but deepy flawed
Review: The world would certainly be worse off without this strange, special-effect laden, Spielberg-Kubrick fusion--but why did Spielberg have to go (apparently) half insane with the plot?
The film is puzzling enough in the first half, without the ridiculous ending. The relationship between humans and robots raises several questions: how can the robos, obviously made of metal inside, be given such an expressive skin? How can they react to changing situations so easily? Why do humans despise them so much to send them hurtling out of cannons at 'flesh fairs' which seek to celebrate human individuality? Why weren't the robots made easier to shut down and idenify if broken? All these questions are dwarfed by the sheer absurdity of the 2000-year leap through time at the ending, however.
(Furthermore, why is Monica only able to come alive for one day--surely a day is an entirely arbitrary unit of time which derives from the earth's rotation rather than the 'unique spacetime pathways'?) Howeve, despite these enormous plot-holes the film is both intriguing and moving. Personally I was driven to hatred of David's adoptive family's callousness, especially the very upsetting Martin. Indeed there did not seem to be a single really appealing human in the film--which cleverly enabled us to feel such sympathy for David and his fellow robots. The teddy, for example, is a delight, as are many of the other mechas, such as Jude Law's Joe. All of this conflict of emotions and challenging of beliefs could have been rounded off very well by ending the film with David's near-endless underwater wishing for the blue fairy to make him real. Instead Spilberg leaps 2000 years into the future (perhaps imitating Kubrick's famous cut from monkeys to the space station in 2001?) and the film heads straght down-hill.
So should you watch it? Definitely yes, but be prepared for logical plotting to go right out of the window, especially towards the end.
Rating:
Summary: One of the underrated movies of 2001
Review: While Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings - FOTR had a big time at the cinema's box offices, was A.I. failing instead, and mabye because it was more different and not so easy to follow.
This is not the typical feel good comedy or action movie they are showing on the TV every saturday, it is one of the more dark and disturbing Sci-fi movies for a more adult audience.
The visual effects and the art direction is great, and it's a spooky vision of the future.
Rating: 
Summary: One of the Fifty Worst Films of All Time...
Review: I can't understand why anyone would think that this film has anything going for it. Watching "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" was truly a hateful experience. It's one of the worst films I've ever seen. Incidentally, used VHS versions of this dog are selling for $.89 at this time, but even that's too much to pay...
Rating: 
Summary: Opportunity Missed!
Review: The premise of the movie was good but after the first half it dissolved into unitelligible nonsense. Looks like the writer ran out of any ideas as to what to do with it at the end and dreamed his way into nothingness. Pinocchio is a much better story, has much more meaning (actually that isn't hardto do because this was very little meaning in AI) and is much more satisfying to watch. AI tried to be a modern-day (future-day) Pinocchio but fell flat.
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg's futuristic fairy tale
Review: Steven Spielberg's "A.I." was one of the most imaginative films in the year of its release, but the powers that be were not aware of it, the Academy choosing as Best Picture a sword-and-sandal romp. Originally picked as a movie project by Stanley Kubrick (it's dedicated to him), "A.I." combines that director's ideas (there are impressions of "2001: A Space Odyssey" and "A Clockwork Orange") with the domestic themes associated with Spielberg. In an unspecified post-deluvian age robots (called "mechas" and used primarily for servile jobs) have become increasingly utilized and despised. The head of a robotics firm (William Hurt) dreams of creating a mecha that can do just that -- dream. The obvious choice is a child, so David is constructed by the firm and "adopted" by an employee and the employee's wife whose own son is comatose. Brought into the home of Henry and Monica, the doll-like David's reactions are strangely inappropriate. (His first words are "I like your floor".) Initially repelled by David's unblinking smile and mecha-nized politeness, Monica (a difficult role well-handled by Frances O'Connor) is eventually drawn to the robot and, following the prescribed instructions, she unlocks the filial love which has been programmed into him. A problem occurs when Monica's real son comes out of his coma and returns home. Contemptous of the mecha, the "orga" boy causes conflicts which doom David's chances of staying with Monica; and the scene where Monica deserts David in a forest has a Grimm-like terror. Then the script opens a completely different story line as we follow the misadventures of a mechastud Gigolo Joe (Jude Law)who, fleeing the police, comes across the disconsolately wandering David -- and his companion, a super-toy Teddy bear. Together, David and Joe are captured by orga entrepreneurs and forced into what is called a Flesh Fair, a sort of circus of horrors where robots are violently destroyed for the thrilled amusement of humans. (Actually, it looks pretty much like a demolition derby.) Escaping the fair, David and Joe proceed to a neon-drenched Rouge City (you'll hear a quote from "Der Rosenkavalier" -- Kubrick's idea), David seeking Pinocchio's Blue Fairy, the power to help him become a real boy and win his mother's love. There's a very funny scene when they visit Dr Know ("There's nothing he doesn't"), designed to look like Einstein and voiced by Robin Williams. Advised by this cartoon guru, David and Joe enter an inundated Manhattan and an unsettling glimpse of the World Trade Center -- which, of course, wouldn't exist in the future. ("A.I." was released in June of 2001.)At this point the film becomes more abstract (and it should be stressed this fairy tale is not for children), but I think it's here that Kubrick and Spielberg merge most successfully. The ending is dark but gentle: throughout the story David has longed to be a real boy -- in other words, a mortal -- and at the end his dream comes true. John Williams' lovely score is especially effective in these final scenes. The outstanding quality of "A.I." is the almost Garboesque acting of Haley Joel Osment as David. In scene after scene, he displays a remarkable sensitivity. The performances and special effects were some of the best of that year, and the screenplay was one of the best-written. But, as I said, the Academy chose to brush aside the whole production. Perhaps it thought "A.I." stood for Absolutely Ignore.
Rating:
Summary: Doesn't Quite Work!
Review: Don't read this review if you have not seen the movie - contains spoilers! This movie gained my attention in the beginning of the film because I found the interactions between David and the human family interesting and I thought it raised a number of interesting questions regarding potential futuristic technology. However, as others have pointed out, the movie moves away from this storyline and begets a sort of fairly tale which I think effectively crushes the credibility of it being a true sci-fi film. I think what makes a good sci-fi film is that although you know what you are viewing is not possible in our present time, you believe that the existence of such a world is possible at some point in the future. And thus you buy into the storyline. However, a fairy tale is much different. A fairy tale is what we recognize as something you may wish for but realize that it can never be. In the beginning of the movie, it feels as though we are watching a sci-fi film. We are watching a story in the future that although obviously does not exist in our present society, has potential to exist in our futures. But I felt as though just as I was beginning to understand and wrap myself up in the film and in the story of this young boy, (and of coming to terms with New York being an underwater city!) the movie makes an abrupt shift to 2,000 years in the future. Not to mention that the middle of the film is very peculiar! We move from the beginning of the film, which is David's life with his family to a story about how technology has created these machines that may or may not possess human tendencies and emotions. Only one of these machines do we come to know as a character in the film. A rather charismatic gigolo named "Joe." But although Joe is certainly very likeable, he is not developed enough as a character for us to really care about what happens to him. If Spielberg is trying to make a point here, it fails. Spielberg does not develop the machines as characters (other than David) so how are we supposed to feel for their potential (though not realized) demise? So that said, what is the moral of Spielberg's story? Are we supposed to question what life in the future may become? Are we supposed to realize that the life we have available to us now may one day be a life that others can only dream of and wish that they had? I don't know, because the movie doesn't seem to offer any opinions on such things. It is one thing to raise questions, but I think a movie also needs to provide not answers, but a direction or an opinion on such things that we then can contemplate, accept or reject. And what is the lesson of David waiting underwater for 2,000 years for his wish to be granted? Persistence pays off? If we all are willing to wait 2,000 years our dreams will eventually come true, even if only for a day? Don't you think David could have done something a little more productive with his 2,000 years of life besides waiting under water for the blue fairy to grant him a wish?! I'm all for movies that make you think, but at least have a question or point worth pondering!
Rating: 
Summary: Almost a 5 but loses it at the end
Review: This Pinnocchio-like tale was highly enjoyable throughout but started to go downhill towards the end. The actor that plays the boy is extremely talented and you really feel for him when he can't get the same affection as his "human" brother. His search for affection has some dangerous consequences and leads his parents to abandon him in a very heart-wrenching scene. He later meets and befriends a robot "gigalo" who tries to help him to attain his mother's affection. They believe in the Pinnocchio story and feel if they can find the blue fairy, the fairy will turn the robot boy into a human and he will be able to get affection from his mother.
Rating: 
Summary: A Fractured Fairytale
Review: It is impossible to deny that A.I. is one of the most visually innovative Hollywood movies of the last decade. Director Steven Spielberg has invisioned a futaristic society in which the boundaries of color, technology and imagination have been pushed farther than most of us primitive beings could ever imagine. Many of the images linger in the mind even as the plot and characters that gave them purpose fade from memory: the intensely colorful and decadent Rouge City, the submurged and decaying Manhattan, the terrifying and joyously deranged Flesh fair. It's a brilliant and riviting feast for the eyes that won't likely be equalled in the near future. Now ask me I actually enjoyed the movie. Sadly, the answer would only be: sort of. Although Spielberg's script includes many moments of great genius, and the nuanced and restrained performances of Haley Joel Osmet and Jude Law are excellent, the film is ultimately a fractured marriage between two of the cinema's greatest filmmakers: Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick. It was Kubrick who first expressed the desire to transform this story of a robotic boy who can love into a film, and Spielberg who picked up the mantle of creation following Kubrick's death in 1999. Spielberg has obviously tried to be true to Kubrick's distinct style and flair, while also adding his own insights and interpretations to the material. Sometimes this partnership is a success, but all too frequently is causes the movie to waver uncontrollably and confusingly between Spielberg's sentimentality and Kubrick's cold meticulousness. It is the spirit of Kubrick who heartlessly leaves David at the bottom of the ocean staring blankly at a statue of the Blue Fairy, and Spielberg who awkwardly resurrects him for his cloying reunion with his mother. Ultimately, A.I. isn't really a bad film, but one that falls short of the standards both of these great directors have set in their previous works.
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