Rating: Summary: No Intelligence Review: This movie was a no brainer. If you have no brain and plenty of time to waste then this movie is for you. After reading who was in the cast and who was responsible for directing the film I expected to be entertained. Instead the audience was treated to a boring, unbelieveable farce. This film ia must to avoid.
Rating: Summary: Spielberg can't come even close to Kubrick Review: I gave this movie two stars out of five stars, because 2/5 of the movie was Kubrickian, therefore intelligent, artistic, and with a clear message. Kubrick's movies are a work of art. The rest of it, taken by Spielberg, is lamentable. The beginning of the movie (thanks to Kubrick) makes us think about whether or not androids can indeed be more "human" than human themselves. What is the criteria of being a human being? Sure, the love that the robot-boy felt for his "mother" may have all been a simulation, but this does not deny the fact that he did indeed feel it. Now, as we start pondering about these meaningful and philosophical issues, Mr. Spielberg has to ruin it for all of us, because as he mentioned himself in an interview "The movie was too sad for the audience", i.e. (translation) I may not be able to make a big blockbuster hit and thereby make more profit out of my exploitation of the masses. To further these means, he then changes this whole philosophical investigation of the mind to some kind of journey of a little boy that has lost his mother, and keeps dragging the movie endlessly...Why? Because he did not even know what to do with it himself. Please, Spielberg, from now on keep on entertaining the masses by your blockbuster hits. But, please, do not ruin a work of ART by trying to pick up after masters like Kubrick. Kubrick never sought to seek audiences. He reminds of Van Gogh to many respects. In fact, he never won an oscar. Why? Because he was the real under-appreciated artist. Not some money and power hungry guy who only cares about attracting more and more people to this movies and make numbers.
Rating: Summary: Very touching Review: This movie grabs ahold of your heart near the beginning and holds on even after the movie is over. Amazon was quick to deliver.
Rating: Summary: When you think its over, turn it off Review: I thought the movie was well done. You could see the dark and strange side of Kubrick throughout most of the film. Then... that ending...it almost made you think that the picture remained untouched by Spielburg until the Aliens appeared with the jump of 2000yrs or so into the Ice Capped future. I think the movie should have ended when Haley Joel Osmond was trapped underwater in front of the "blue fairy statue" Done and Done. Aliens not necessary! I did like the toy bear, it was a spooky. I kept thinking the Toy was going to get angry and turn on everyone like the HAL9000 did in 2001: A Space Odyssey. My advice...sure buy the movie, watch it until you think it should end and TURN IT OFF!!! (The pause after the underwater scene)
Rating: Summary: Good Idea Wasted on a Bad Movie Review: The basic idea for this movie is excellent, and so are the special effects and the actor who plays David (Haley Joel Osment). However, the plot is more like a brainstorm of how artificial intelligence would affect the future than it is a story. The movie spends an insufficient amount of time developing the characters, and too much time preaching about the consequences of artificial intelligence. This film was frustrating because it could have and should have been much better than it was.
Rating: Summary: The best of movies Review: This is a true hard sci-fi classic, an intelligent story of a little robot that leads us to a far away future (more than Bicentenial Man) at that point the human race is extincted (or gone to other world) and only robots (Specialists, NOT aliens) remain on earth. Some people may dislike it because of that or just because its eclectic mix of ideas from its two great creators. Remember: is not a Spielberg or a Kubrick film, it's both.
Rating: Summary: The DVD presentation is superb; feature film not up to par Review: Despite its evident weaknesses and a very poor box office showing, I actually liked A.I. for its core themes, if not for its overall presentation. True, artificial intelligence is an extremely overplayed phenomenon in movies and television, but somehow this movie makes a worthwhile departure from the norm.By the credits, it's clear Stanley Kubrick's original dark, foreboding and pessimistic vision of technology is squashed by Spielberg's more enlightening and hopeful cry for moral responsibility. This movie feels like a tale of two minds; Kubrick's deep symbolism and cynicism of technology with Spielberg's wishy-washy feel-goodiness are like water and oil, so I really felt the ending didn't do justice to the great beginning. But personal whims aside, the only glaring weakness is that fact this movie was directed by two film geniuses, both who stand on polar ends of a spectrum. The DVD features are quite plentiful, and I found most of them to be true to the overall feel of the two-disc set. There are some very insightful featurettes that explore the technical aspects of CGI (ILM) as well as two satisfactory interviews with the two stars, Osment and Jude Law. There's quite a bit of behind-the-scenes footage that isn't the typical "PR blitz." Those interested in the fine technical merits of this film, how Teddy's anatomic movement was simulated, and secrets behind the cinematography will find the supplementary disc to be very enlightening. The feature film, however, I leave to your own discretion. It's a rude balance between opposing minds that seems more artificial than intelligent.
Rating: Summary: If I had only known Review: I saw this film in the theater and like it. So i decided to buy the dvd for my dvd collection. I am obsessed with quality video and audio and this DVD [STINKS] ! I own an HDTV and the picture quality of this DVD is unaceptable. It completely ruined the dvd for me. I would expect more from speilberg. If you don't care about video quality , then this is a decent movie, not fast paced, not an action flick, but an original story with good actors. JQ's
Rating: Summary: Not Pinnochio, but Frankenstein Review: It was my own mistake, I did not read the reviews on this. However, one warning. If you are at all softhearted, you will sob through this one. There is a reason, I say Frankenstein and not Pinnochio. I gave it a 5 for special effects and a 2 for being very single-minded in its story. I felt it was made overly harsh to maximize on the emotional effect. It was too much. A scientist gets a brilliant idea to make robots, feel love for people they are programmed for. In this case a child robot. No specifics, but a means of imprinting a robot child's feelings to that of a family is found. Of course this idea needs to be tested. One catch however, there is no going back. If this does not work out with the family, the robot cannot be reprogrammed but must be destroyed. A young couple who's child has been put "on ice" to suspend his potential life, until a cure is found is the obvious in-house choice, for this "new" concept of a robot. With much second thought and guilty feelings this family decides to "imprint" on this robot child, sealing his fate if this does not work out. With Haley Joel Osment angelic face as David, you can imagine why, when he plays this guileless robot, it is all the more difficult. Well, so as not to ruin the story, you can almost begin to imagine the rest, if I said it's sad. I won't give the specifics away, but that it is all pretty believable. I love sci-fi, and this was a well written one, however, I could not watch it again. It was too emotionally wrenching. This movie is well-written, the special effects are breathtaking, and the story is heart-breaking. The only feature of the movie that gave it some softness was a wonderful mechanical "Teddy" bear, a smart toy of the future. I want one.
Rating: Summary: The movie's point is (and there is one I think). Review: ...Truthfully, I don't know what the point of the movie is. Haley Joel Osment did a fine acting job as a robotic boy, named David, who was remarkably realistic and who was programmed to have human emotions. He became programmed to love his human "Mommy" who adopted him. However, conflicts with her husband and real son led her to an agonizing decision. Like Pinocchio, David wants to become a real boy. In fact, David is familiar with the story of Pinocchio, and many references are made to it, which takes any subtlety away from the parallels between the two. In David's quest, we see much gratuitous cruelty as other humanlike robots are sadistically destroyed while David continues on his quest. If the movie was more entertaining, I suppose I would have tolerated it more despite it's lack of any discernable point. Unfortunately, the movie tended to drag at points. The reason I saw this movie, in the first place, is because it kept comming up as a recommendation on my Amazon welcome screen. Therefore, on Amazon's recommendation, I will charitably give it three stars for, at best, a moderately engaging effort.
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