A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, William Hurt; d. Stephen Speilberg; A-

Finally, the long awaited collaboration between Stephen Speilberg and late filmmaker Stanley Kubrick has arrived in theaters, and the result is the superb yet flawed film A.I. Artificial Intelligence, written and directed by Spielberg. In the mid 21st Century, we find the Earth in environmental ruins thanks to human beings' rapid and selfish consumption/destruction of natural resources. Due to such uncaring treatment of the environment, the polar caps have thus melted, submerging the world's coastlines as well as costal cities (including Venice and New York City) underwater. Only a select few humans in the world are living in prosperity, while the vast majority are suffering in miserable poverty. The lucky few, though, have been able to develop advanced technology created soley to make themselves feel better: Artificially intelligent robots, or "mechas," created in the image of humans and designed specifically to do some humanoid action to perfection. Most notorious for doing such an action are the "lover mechas," programmed to give any human some luvin' like they've never experienced before in their lives. However, in spite of all this advanced superhuman technology, there has never been a "mecha" created to emote, to want, or to dream, so much so that it resembles the emotions, wants, and dreams of a real human being.

In light of such a revelation, Professor Allen Hobby (William Hurt; interesting character name, huh?), supposedly a genius at mecha technology, proposes the creation of a mecha child. A robot programmed to have the wants, dreams, and emotions of a human choid, a robot programmed to give realistic and unconditional love to which ever parent encodes themselves on. Twenty months after Hobby's propostion, the mecha child, given the name David (Haley Joel Osment of The Sixth Sense), has been created and is ready for a "test drive." Looking at employee records, Hobby settles on employee Henry Swinton (Sam Robards) and wife Monica (Frances O'Connor). The Swintons have suffered a family tragedy, an accident that leaves their son, Martin (Jake Thomas), in a coma-like state with no hope of recovery. While a gift from his company, Henry regards David as a gift to Monica, who is obviously emotionally distraught from the situation. Monica at first is uneasy with the concept of David. While David seems on the outside to be completely real, she knows well enough, since, after all, her husband works for a mecha-creating company, that inside he is "just like the rest," a robot, a mecha, unreal and programmed to do humanoid things. Eventually she accepts the idea of David, and begins to enjoy his company. She finally decides to program him to love her as a mother when she gives up hope of Martin ever recovering from his state. Unfortunatley for David, Monica receives word that doctors have finally been able to cure Martin and that her son can return home, this being not too long after Monica has programmed David. This situation puts Monica in a state of moral dilemma, especially when Martin begins treating David maliciously, even causing David to "break" and put Monica in phsyical harm. Monica eventually makes a decision, and a heartbreaking one at that, thus sending David on an obsessive and disturbing journey to find the famed "blue fairy" of the Pinnocchio fairy tale to turn him into a real boy.

Based on the short story Super Toys Last All Summer Long, A.I. Artificial Intelligence takes an interesting twist on the Pinnocchio fable. A superbly done drama, A.I. shines in spite of flaws from the otherwise strong script by Speilberg. The flaws come in the form of occasionaly faulty narrative, as well the use of certain characters. The first third of the film is virtually flawless, even though it could have benifited from a few extra scenes to set up deeper character relationships, traits, and motives, even though these aspects can be cleary pointed out in the first third as is. The middle of this film is probably the most flawed, dissapointingly so because it raises and answers many of the film's intellectual questions. This is probably the portion of the film most damaged by Speilberg's radical editing (since the film originally was four hours long). If not for the editing perhaps one of the film's most important characters, a "lover mecha" named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), could have provided and interesting and darker paralell to David's story. Instead, Joe is reduced to a philosiphising sidekick with eerie, unexplained, humanoid self-awareness and emotions. He also suffers from one to many abrupt exits, ending with an unsatisfying exit near the start of the third half, giving the film's most confusing lines "I am, I was." Another problem with the middle section is its all too quick pacing. Prime examples of this would be our introduction to Joe, as well as out introduction to the "flesh fair." These situations are set up too quickly that it is hard to understand or emote with what is going on, nor with anyone involved in the situation. Joe apparently has been framed for murder, but the set up happens so quickly that Joe's impending arrest seems not to be as much of a threat as it should be. When he is found the arrests wind up being not expected, but out of the blue and almost cartoonish, wholly uneven with the emotion of the story. Likewise, mechas who have been captured for the flesh fair are hard to emote with because of the quick pacing. I had no sense that they are in extreme danger until I actually saw one mecha destroyed, but even more so, since I was not familliar with any of these characters beyond David and to some extention Gigolo Joe, it is hard to pity them when they are cruley destroyed for the entertainment and narccisistic value of human beings. Speilberg tries to compensate by having these mechas signify that they are aware that they're about to be thrown into a ring of fire (as one Chris Rock-voiced mecha admits), or requesting to have their pain censors turned off, or by focusing on a nanny mecha, who bears an eerie resembelnce to Monica and quickly latches onto David merely because he looks like a child. I see her mercilessly flayed, but again, it was hard to care, because I did not know her. On top of that, I could see she is not a mecha in the sense of David but a mecha obviously programmed to be a nanny and nothing else. I only cared about David being hurt because he is the only mecha I had become familliar with, even though he, too, is hurt by the film's editing. I really did not understand the importance of David's blue fairy because of this, because it was introduced at the very end of the first act and explored through the second. I understand that David feels that this blue fairy can make him real, and thus make him able to return home, but I don't understand the exact emotional or psychological seriousness of the situation. I only understand David's obsession with Monica, but not with the blue fairy. Editing destroys any apparent purpose in Joe and David going to the dazzling Rouge City as well. Besides Dr. Know, what importance does Rouge City have to David's journey? Again, hadn't so much been edited out of the film, perhaps I would have gotten a better understanding of what goes on within the second act, as well as David's psychological journey. The third act, well, takes some warming up to. At first, it turned me off. Where I believed the film initially should have ended, with David in Coney Island, the film goes on for another 30 minutes, and fast fowards some two thousand years later. What I saw as irrevelant absurdities and intended crowd pleasers piled on top of another, finally culminating in one sweet but unneccessary and perhaps unitentionally disturbing ending. In retrospect I see that this ending is vital to the film, especially to its Pinnochio paralells, and perhaps a third viewing will warm me up even more to this ending. However, for first time veiwers, the ending may ruin the whole film for you. Overall, I will give the narrative of the film the benifit of a doubt in consideration of what may have been lost in significant editing cuts.

Artificial Intelligence's saving grace comes in form of its direction. While faulty pacing may be the fault of the director (which it is, since Speilberg was the one who cut out the significant portion of the original cut), Speilberg manages to move the story and the film along with skillful direction of the cast as well as the visuals. Haley Joel Osment tops his mature performance in The Sixth Sense in this film as David. The emotions he potrays in this film are realistic and complex, more so than any "normal" child actor has ever been able to bring to the screen. He is believable as a robot and as a "real boy," without being oddly at odds with himself. Osment's performance becomes even more complex as the storyline moves on: From the end of the first act, to his encounter with Professor Hobby and a disturbing encounter with another child mecha, Osment's performance is on key without a slip up. In spite of his character's curbed importance, Jude Law is able to shine in what little material he is shown in here. He graces the screen with his impecible screen presence, engrossing to look at because of his graceful movements: Those of a robot and of a song and dance man a la Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire (speaking of whom, with just the crick of his neck Gigolo Joe can play a good ol' tune from Mr. Astaire himself). His watchable movements are not the best part of his performance, though. Law is able to master the complexities of Gigolo Joe: As comic releif (and Law is surprisingly good at comedy in this film), as a "lover mecha" programmed to be first concerned with carnal issues, and as an entity aware of himself as well as the world around him, much more so than any other mecha besides David encountered in this film. Also good, but not as stand out, is Frances O'Connor as Monica, whose performance may have also been curtailed by the editing. Others in the cast fail to make themselves noticable, with the exception of Jack Angel. The problem with Angel, though, is that he is not in the film, but his voice is - As the voice of Teddy, a "super toy" that used to belong to Martin but is given to David as a gift from Monica when she decides to accept him as a subsititue for her son. Teddy becomes David's mentor of sorts, but only by giving him breif and cryptic messages such as "You will break." However, Teddy is bound to become a favorite of most who see this film, for he is not only somewhat funny (falling high from the sky, landing on the ground, only to give an unenthusiastic "ow" is pretty funny), but interesting to watch. Teddy is a great peice of film technology, which crosses into A.I.'s stunning visuals. While some may argue that films like Shrek and the upcoming Final Fantasy represent just how far advanced computer film technology has gone, I think A.I. better represents this area. The visuals of this film are sort of like David - They look real that they fool the eye into believing they are real, when the mind knows they are not. We all know Jude Law can't change his hair color/style like *snap* that, but A.I.'s stunning technology makes the eye believe that it is really happening. Likewise, we all know Jude Law is not a robot, but makeup, as well as his performance, makes it easy to believe that he is. We know that Rouge City is not real, but the stunning sets make it possible to believe that it exists. Hopefully, come Oscar time, this will come out on top in terms of Make up, sets, and visual effects, even though it might have a strong contender in Moulin Rouge and Pearl Harbor. However, admittedly A.I. has the most outstanding visuals I have ever seen. Another superb thing about this film is its score by John Williams. Normally, I can not stand him, however, Williams manages to impress my ears with this hauntingly beautiful and understated score that doesn't steal the scene when it isn't needed.

A.I. is strongly reccomended by me, with a particular warning that this film is not exactly for everyone. However, this film has sparked interesting debate, from those who have loved it and those who have hated it. If this review has not sparked interest in you, I say see it out of sheer curiosity. A.I. is definatley one of the best intellectually stimulating films to come along, relying on pure emotional drama and storytelling to raise its questions and move its story along rather than gimmick, which so many "intellectually stimulating" films now a days seem, unfortunatley, to be relying on too much.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001