Subject: Review: A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

From: Dennis Schwartz <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 10 Jul 2001 20:37:08 -0000

A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (director/writer: Steven Spielberg ;
screenwriters: Ian Watson (screen story)/Brian Aldiss--based on his short story
"Supertoys Last All Summer Long'' by Brian Aldiss; cinematographer: Janusz
Kaminski; editor: Michael 
Kahn; cast: Haley Joel Osment (David), Jude Law (Gigolo Joe), Frances O'Connor
(Monica Swinton), Sam Robards (Henry Swinton), Jake Thomas (Martin Swinton),
Brendan Gleeson (Lord Johnson-Johnson), William Hurt (Professor Hobby), Jack
Angel (Voice of Teddy), Robin Williams (Voice of Dr. Know), Ben Kingsley
(Narrator); Runtime: 145; Warner Bros./DreamWorks; 2001) 

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz 

Stanley Kubrick until his untimely death was working on a project that weighed
for a long time on his mind -- the subject of artificial intelligence. He worked
on a treatment 
he prepared with Ian Watson based on the 1969 Brian Aldiss short story and the
many drawings he'd done with Chris Baker, which were both handed over to Steven
Spielberg. He also hired an engineer to live on his English estate and build the
perfect child robot, waiting all these years for technology to advance before he
made his film. Steven Spielberg is given the blessing by the Kubrick estate to
take over that project, and he brings his great craftsmanship skill as a visual
story teller to the film while paying homage to Kubrick's intentions and themes
he wanted developed. He succeeds for most of the film in keeping it tight while
presenting an occasional riveting psychological moment or two, as he tells a
fairy tale for adults; it's a version which will go way over the heads of
children and many of the adults. What he does is put the Pinocchio fairy tale,
the Frankenstein story, and the Oedipus myth in his warm-hearted blender and
gives them a good mixing up. He also takes full credit for the script and does
not include Kubrick as co-screenwriter; he only credits him with the film's
idea. 

What Spielberg fails to do is tell the fairy tale ending in the same artistic
way a Kubrick would have displayed his mastery of telling a good mystery story.
He does turn the climax into one which should have critics wondering about his
intentions for a long-time to come, as in his use of the academic voiceover
lecture to end the film on. It was a thoughtful climactic touch but what the
film demanded for it to be considered as a masterpiece, is a more lyrical note
to end it on; which is the most glaring fault of the film. 

What Spielberg delivers is a film that leaves you thinking about what the end of
human civilization means and how close to artificial intelligence can the world
be as its reality, and about how love is something that can't be programmed
without something being amiss about it. It also does not have Spielberg's usual
dosage of sentimentality, which has played havoc with most of his previous
films. 

It's a splendid film that pays homage to both himself and Kubrick for their
noteworthy films. Spielberg for his Close Encounters of a Third Kind/E. T.. 
Kubrick for his 2001: A Space Odyssey/Eyes Wide Shut. 

It's a Hollywood film that defies what a Hollywood film is about, while in
essence still being a Hollywood film of excesses and special effects. This is
one of the best films Spielberg has ever made, and his most thought-provoking
one. It has much of both giant filmmakers locked into this story, though it's a
Spielberg film and not a Kubrick one. 

A.I. is set in the near-future, mid-21st century, as narrator Ben Kingsley
explains that the melted ice caps are a common sight. The sight of NYC submerged
under the ocean is both bleak and visually satisfying. Most of civilization is
submerged in destruction of their land mass, and it's common for families to
have robots to do their work out of necessity because of the labor shortage.
These robots are created to function as humanoids and are known as "mechas." 

The film opens when the optimistically brilliant NYC robot designer, Dr. Hobby
(William Hurt), in the middle of lecturing his colleagues about his latest
revolutionary creation -- "a  robot child with a love that will never end." The
robot can dream, has an unconscious state and can feel both pain and love. Hobby
fields all question and with the self-satisfied air of a true believer in the
prevailing biblical myth, mentions to his doubters: "Didn't God create Adam so
that he might love Him?" What is hinted at, is that we are just beginning to see
what the possibilities there are in A.I.. Until now all the robots have to be
programmed by us but, perhaps, in 50 years these robots will be able to not only
program themselves and surpass their creators, but give us eternal life if we
can feed into their system and give up our human life (after all the mind is
what makes us human and not our body parts). But in order for the robots to have
a live intelligence and not merely a programmed one, they will have to be
created like nature creates its plants and animals. It is this possibility that
will always leave them flawed, but with the potential to push evolution to new
levels. In that time, possibly by the middle of this century, the robots will
become real creatures. 

Hobby's creation is the angelic blond named David (Haley Joel Osment), and he's
awarded twenty months later for adoption to a couple, Henry (Sam Robards) and
Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor), whose six year old, Martin (Jake Thomas), has
been frozen the last five years with a critical illness. David, the cybertronic
simulation of a boy, is Henry's surprise gift to his wife, hoping that the
child's programmed unswerving love for her will make her forget her real son's
debilitation. 

David's initial programmed response to Monica is: "Mommy, will you die?" 

For the first hour or so, the story takes place in the couple's suburban upscale
home and the action is limited to how they adjust to each other. When Martin
suddenly recovers and returns home, a jealous Cain and Abel sibling rivalry for
their mother's attention ensues. Into the mix is thrown a robotic Teddy bear,
Martin's supertoy, who can walk and talk, and he now becomes a constant
companion of David's. In the meantime Martin replaces his Teddy by making David
his new supertoy. What results is that the family has many misgivings about
David and what his love means to them. After a few questionable incidents they
decide to dump the robot. In one incident David sneaks into mom's bedroom while
she's asleep to clip a lock of her hair because of Martin goading him to do it.
When mom awakens to see the scissors in his hand, she instinctively feels more
love for her flawed real son than her programmed loving one. There's also an
alarming swimming pool incident where David almost drowns the sneaky Martin, and
there's a spinach eating incident that Martin goads David into (robots can't eat
and if they do it messes up their inside circuitry). They decide to return David
to the cybertronic lab in New Jersey, in the same way a disheartened pet owner
might do when taking their unwanted pet to an animal shelter. In this case it
means destruction and a trip to the scrap heap (which is like a junkyard for
autos). But mom can't bear to have her artificial son destroyed, so she sends it
out into the woods with Teddy Bear as a companion and tells the boy to learn how
to survive and not to trust humans -- but to never come home again. David is
touched by human feelings and only wishes he could be created again as a real
boy (the film's main theme), and once again be with Monica. Having absorbed the
Pinocchio story read to him by Monica at bedtime (even though he has no need to
sleep), he believes if he can find the "Blue Fairy" he can get his only wish in
life and be once again reunited with Monica as a real boy through her making him
real, just like she made the wooden Pinocchio real. 

The second half of the story becomes layered with more complex themes and harder
to answer questions. It's a spiritual odyssey about creation that David takes in
the hardened nocturnal world of what remains of urban civilization, which is a
reflection of a literary hell. It's here that Spielberg asks questions about
humanity that he has never asked before in his more lightweight films: he
questions family values and wonders about scientific and religious definitions
of creation, and he most of all wonders if humanity is only one link in
evolution that raises consciousness and that if it becomes obsolete what will be
the other ways to evolve. 

In these scenes to find the Blue Fairy, David and Teddy team up with an agile
mecha gigolo named Joe (Law). But they must escape from "antirobot human bounty
hunters on motor bikes'' and their mean leader (Gleeson), who captures these
stray mechas for Roman gladiator-like entertainment events and takes them to a
place called Flesh Fair. Here the amusement park operators find gruesome novel
ways to kill the mechas off to entertain their thrill-seeking audience. The trio
escapes to a neon-lit Rouge City, a seedy place where the animated stud, Joe,
had previously pleasured his women clientele and claims to know all that there's
to know about women. It's here that the trio encounter a wizard answer man
called Dr. Know (voice of Robin Williams). He sends them on their way to the
"End of the World" to meet the Blue Fairy, in the submerged New York. It takes
David a mere 2000 years to reach his destination, but once there he has the
entrancing showdown with what life means and finds out that the best you can do
is return to the dream world. 

It's an imaginative film, that has a lot going for it except exciting dialogue.
I couldn't ask for anything more from Spielberg; he has taken on Kubrick's depth
and artistic integrity in filmmaking, at least, for this film; he has paid
homage to Kubrick, and has made a highly personal film. This might disappoint
many in the mass market audience that are attracted to Spielberg for other
reasons and might expect to see another kiddie pic like E. T.. But the film will
also attract a more sophisticated sci-fi film crowd, that should connect this
film with a "2001" cyberspace experience. 

The acting accolades go to Haley Joel Osment -- who carries the film as an
innocent, albeit, unreal child, left alone and vulnerable in a very cruel world;
he only wants to return to the only home he has ever known; and, to Jude Law,
who is refreshingly daffy as a gigolo and friend to David. 

REVIEWED ON 7/6/2001     GRADE: A - 

Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews" 

http://www.sover.net/~ozus 

[email-masked] 

© ALL RIGHTS RESERVED   DENNIS SCHWARTZ 

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