AI: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

2001

Think "Pinocchio," and you have the basic plot of "A.I.," the near-masterpiece collaboration between two of film's most creative directors, the late Stanley Kubrick, and the very-much-alive Stephen Spielberg. Kubrick researched the project for 20 years, and then handed it over to Stephen Spielberg just before he died, thereby creating the only flaw in the film. For two hours, it's a brilliant Stanley Kubrick film,... chilling, detached, unemotional, cerebral...and then for the last half hour, it becomes a Stephen Spielberg fantasy, filled with emotion, sentimentality, and cute, wise aliens! That ending just doesn't work, because it sabotages the rest of the mood and style of the film. In the future, when the greenhouse effect has melted the ice caps and submerged cities like New York and Venice, scientists have created robots to serve and give pleasure to mankind. One of these scientists (William Hurt) has just created a young-boy robot(Haley Joel Osment,) with something new added...the ability to love and feel emotions. "A.I." asks the question, do we have the right to create something to love US, if we're not going to love IT unconditionally, in return? The search for the answer to this question drives the film forward to its mushy conclusion. The look of the film is astonishing, as is John Williams evocative score, and Osment's acting. But the movie should have ended at a perfectly logical place in the story...one-half hour before the actual film ended!

4.5 Stars

NJB

Many years into the future, man creates a machine that can love. This machine is created in the image of a small child and given the name "David." Is it moral to give something the ability to love, knowing full well that we may not be able to return that same love to it? This is the question that the film poses to itself and its audience. The result of the combined efforts of the late Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, AI bravely attempts to tackle a topic that many studios would probably shy away from. A film with some sort of meaning- what a novel idea these days. Although Kubrick had passed this along to Spielberg supposedly to give it more warmth and heart, the film oozes with Kubrick. It really is Spielberg's homage to, or his best imitation of, the Kubrick style. The film is chilling and eerie. It is also, however, a technical masterpiece. Probably one of the most beautifully shot films of the last few years, expect it to clean up the Oscars in many of the same categories as Saving Private Ryan a few years ago. The three very distinct acts in the film go amazing, very good, good, respectively. The first act is David with his family. The second act is David searching, but its also a series of very important and very in-your-face commentaries about our society. The last act... well, the last half hour just left me all creeped out and I fell like it probably could've been completely left out and this would've been a better film. But, who am I to second guess Steven, right? Fine performances from Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law with some nice bit parts by William Hurt and Brendan Gleeson. For those of us only familiar with Kubrick's later works, let's remember him for this, and not that garbage Eyes Wide Shut. As for Spielberg, its another nice addition to his repertoire.

4 Stars

CDF