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A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Full Screen Special Edition)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Full Screen Special Edition)

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A deep film
Review: I know this film has had a lot of mixed reviews, but I actually thought it was awesome. Especially the ending when he brings his mother back for 24 hours. Stanley Kubrick's vision of ai was awesome and Steven Spielburg has put together a master piece. The acting, especially by young Osment was outstanding. A deep film.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: My favorite Sci-fi is Flawed
Review: A.I. is a very unique experience. Many people walk away from it saying under their breath, "That was weird." A.I. is the story of a robot child who yearns for his mother's love. When robot designer/visionist decides to create a robot child to replace a lost son, the question they pose in the movie is, "but can a human love a robot?" This sets the stage of the movie & the journey of David, the abandoned robot child who stops at nothing to become a real boy so that his mother might take him back.

Although the movie is set in the future, it's not fantastical or unpractical. The focus of the story is more on the personification of David's humanity. The angle of this movie is the ultimate contrast of genius. We sympathize so much with David, but the fact is that he is indeed just a robot. With that, the question posed at the beginning of the movie is not only answered by the end, but the audience shares in it's revelation by emotional interaction. In hindsight, we may ponder our everyday attachments & find our own humanity directly reflected.

The flaws of the movie are not many but are apparent when you watch the film. There are parts which are contrived &/or unnecessary. I would personaly like to do my own edit of the film & reshoot one scene in particular to further this contrast of robots & love. (I think that if Jude Law, the robo-gigolo, killed his client, then the murderous robot who teams up with the hopeful & unconditional David would be a great contrast & statement.) The film has a great 1st act, so-so 2nd act, & a 3rd act which contains the most contrieved moments & the greatest moments of the entire film. These are my thoughts, watch the movie & find your own.

*A note on the creators*

This is a movie that the late'n'great, Stanley Kubrick developed for years & the living great, Steven Spielberg directed. Being young & inexperience, I never quite understood Kubrick until I saw Spielberg try to do Kubrick. With this approach of tribute, I was made very clear what Kubrich was all about. Going back to his films then gave me a greater sense of appreciation.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Sci-Fi Classic
Review: One can see a virtual tug of war between the philosophies of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg play out in this film. This movie questions some of our basic assumptions such as 1) humans have feelings whereas robots are unable to ever cross that path; 2) that robots can start out being mechanical, unthinking decides and evolve, somehow, to intelligent, reactive life forms; and 3) that when humans are gone, some higher form of robotic life will remain.

At the same time, some religious individuals may question how the robots -- the modern form of civilization in the future -- arose? That is never explained. Moralists may question what the real message behind the movie is. Do robots demand our respect? The movie gives the impression that they do, IF certain conditions are met, such as their exhibiting superior intellectual skills, which is not present at this time.

What if the robots in the film are just programmed to be spontaneous and random, to show human emotions, yet do not actually experience them the same way humans do? Then what?

Michael Gordon

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Best Sci Fi since Blade Runner?
Review: I understand that Steven Spielberg took over this project started by the late Stanley Kubrick, which would explain the uneasy edge to the usual Spielbergian treatment. The remnants of Kubrick's message, namely that humans are soon-to-be obsolete beasts, contend with the usual Spielberg formula of corn syrup, tears, and awe, so that the result is unsettling and more than a bit curiouser and curiouser.

First of all, be aware that, despite the fact that there is a full serving of the Spielberg recipe here (cute kids, dazzling special effects, a beautiful score by John Williams, social consciousness seen largely from a kid's POV, etc.), this is not a "feel good" movie that will appeal to the mass audience at which Spielberg usually aims. The heartland of America will find this film disturbing and will tell their neighbors to stay away. Sci fi afficionados of the hard science variety (like myself) will have mixed feelings since some of the science is, shall we say, unlikely. The fantasy/sorcery crowd will probably be disenchanted for other reasons, although there is a glorious ending that might mist up one's eyes (it did mine). Overall, however, this is an unsettling look at humanity and where we're headin' ("Is that Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?"), and the treatment is definitely NOT something for the kiddies. It's liable to give them nightmares.

The central hook of the film is that we are made to identify with the robotic mechas, especially Haley Joel Osment's David and Jack Angel's Teddy and Jude Law's Gigolo Joe, while being reminded that they are not human, or more properly, that they are more admirable than human. In a way the robots resemble the have-nots of the current society, the handicapped and the poor, while the humans in the persons of Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor), her son Martin (Jake Thomas) and the Flesh Fair entrepreneur (Brendan Gleeson) represent respectively the privileged, the cruel, and the exploitive. Monica's compromised morality is made clear in the scene in the woods (which I won't describe for fear of giving away too much). One also gets the sense that she and her husband (who portray the usual kid-show parental mentality) are not actually bright enough to figure out what has happened when siblings and friends have conflicts. Monica simply sides with her biological child and throws David to the wolves, as it were.

On another level this is a movie about a child's undying love for his mother, a love that lasts for two thousand years and a day and is never compromised. It is about believing in fairy tales and the miraculous, a modern day Pinocchio in Wonderland as might be dreamed up by admirers of Blade Runner (1982). In the Spielberg canon, echoes from his cinematic predecessors mesh with echoes from his own movies in a sometimes all too obvious way. Note the return of the moon (in sinister splendor) from E.T. with Teddy (who could have been retrieved from the set of Blade Runner--as could Prof. Hobby, AKA Geppetto) trudging across the top of a rise in front of it.

The sets and the animations are sumptuous and beautiful. The robots and the aliens are ingeniously crafted. I very much liked the vision of a drowned Manhattan with the upper stories of the skyscrapers rising above the level of the sea (presumably from global warming), giving us a very quiet and almost contemplative Manhattan, and then the skyscrapers immersed in ice as the earth falls into a prolonged ice age. The sense of the rapid passage of awesome time reminded me a bit of Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), while Dr. Know (voice of Robin Williams) recalled The Wizard of Oz (1939), and the Blue Fairy (voice of Meryl Streep) something from Disney.

This is a substantially compromised masterpiece, as it certainly had to be coming from the ghost of Kubrick as fashioned by Hollywood's most powerful and most commercially successful director, but an engaging, ambitious spiral into the future, one well worth watching one, one that will linger in the mind awhile.

See this to encourage Spielberg to emphasize creativity over formula, to encourage him to make more movies that dare to offend the mass mind while intriguing the rest of us.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Spielberg is a hack (reason #1)
Review: Insipid film. "Hey Joe, whaddaya know?" Well I know this film is a stinker. Lil boy robot wants to be a real boy. Haley Mills Osment has momma issues, too. Kubrick had such vision for this project, but instead it was turned into a Spielberg family fun flick. Blah!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Spielberg is a hack (reason #1)
Review: Insipid film! "Hey Joe, whaddaya know?" Well I know this film is a stinker! Haley Mills Osment has momma issues and is just plain creepy.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Promising concept fails to deliver
Review: A.I. was a film I had been awaiting for some time. It involved two landmark directors, a gifted child actor and an intriguing plot occurring in the future - everything appeared to be in place for a grand experience. Unfortunately, I didn't find A.I. to be quite that.

The theme of A.I. is presented early on. Allen Hobby, the maker of the main character David (Haley Joel Osment,) is confronted with a moral question: Do robots created in man's image, with the ability to love, demand that love in return from their owners? The answer to this question is never truly presented. Instead, the movie essentially skirts around this moral issue and concerns itself more with the superficial appearance of David. Monica, David's "mother," eventually accepts him based on the surface characteristics he displays, but this contradicts the movie's own logic, which concludes that machines cannot replicate human emotion.

Further detracting from the effect of the film is the disjointed manner in which the story is told. Some reviewers have commented on how the film has three distinct parts - this is correct. This approach isn't as much of a problem as is the change of tone from one part to the other. The film's first section involves David and the failed assimilation into his family. As a result of this failed assimilation, David feels that he must become a "real boy" in order to be loved by his mother. Thus the second and third sections of the film take on a fairy tale tone, with David seeking the means to make him a real boy. Unfortunately, following the first section of the film, the question of whether humans hold any responsibility toward emotive robots is no longer asked.

Strangely, the best performances in A.I. are from the artificial characters - Halley Joel Osment is especially fit to play David, but Jude Law also plays a convincing Gigolo Joe, and if he counts, Teddy adds some light-heartedness to this otherwise bleak film. The rest of the performances, I found, were unremarkable. The film was not served well by its stiff dialogue, and occasionally unrealistic circumstances. A prime example of this is the conclusion of the Flesh Fair sequence. The score from John Williams, as expected, is outstanding and worthy of purchase. Unfortunately, the cons of this film outweigh the pros, and ultimately sink it.

***Spoiler***

By the way - those aren't aliens at the end. Notice how their body shape resembles the Cybertronics logo.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: proof that hollywood can actually do something worthwhile
Review: this is indisputable spielberg's best film in a very long time (and i won't even bother wasting my time with the artisitcally challenged people who wish to dispute it).
some reviews have harped on the so called sappy ending. spielberg has indeed copped out in numerous films (the sitcom like scene that oprah winfry has in 'color purple' or the schindler break down scene in 'list') but not here. rather than the ending being sappy, it is actually painted in freudian darkness(the child in bed with his mommy, hoplessly oblivious to her impending death) and the film is an excellent mix of both kubrick's and spielberg's aesthetics.
(kubrick himself must have thought so, because, contrary to what's been said he did indeed feel spielberg should direct it). the film is also illuminatingly beautiful.
quite possibly it is the most beatiful and haunting of all spielberg's films.
jude law gives an award winning performance and deserved all the accolades he received (and deserved more).

the film proved too challenging to the american masses (suprise suprise) but in that sense it is true in spirit to the challenges that kubrick always demanded of audiences.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: What Was Steven Spielberg Thinking About?
Review: I just finished watching "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" for the first time, and, while I usually like to see a movie at least twice before reviewing it, this one is so bad that I don't even know whether I can sit through it again. The story begins in the future (presumably about 100 - 200 years from now) at a time when robots are being made that are so lifelike, it's sometimes hard to tell them apart from real people. A couple loses their son (we are led to believe that he is dead, but this turns out not to be true) and adopts a little boy robot to take his place. The boy robot is programmed to mimic the emotions of a human boy, but it doesn't take long to realize that things aren't working quite as planned. Then, in a total shocker, it turns out that the couple's son isn't dead after all, and he comes home to live with his parents and his robot brother.

I don't want to give away the whole story here, so let's just say that the little boy robot ends up, like an electronic Pinocchio, on a quest to become a real boy. The story is dumb, there are plot twists that make no sense at all (staying underwater for 2000 years while praying to the Blue Fairy to make him a real boy is one of them) and the acting performances of the adults are weak. The only consistently good thing about this movie is Haley Joel Osment's performance as the little boy robot. The special effects are good at times, but cheesy at other times.

It's a good thing that kid can act, or I would've had to give this a one-star rating.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Truely Remarkable
Review: You negative reviewers do not know what you speak of. This movie is a milestone in filmmaking. It depicts and incredibly idea of what the future might be like. I loved everything about this movie. This truely is remarkable


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