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El Cosmico Finds A.I. Artificial and Unintelligent.
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey folks, Dave here, your pal El Cosmico, with a look at what I'd like
to consider the last Kubrick film made, since Eyes Wide Shut was so mediocre.
Damn that piano playing that note over and over during a long pan through the
dining room and kitchen!
It's A.I.! Hooray! Be forewarned, though, once I finish with the niceties,
I'm gonna throw out a bunch of spoilers. Heed the warning when it comes.
So, I actually liked this film, until it reached the point at which it
CLEARLY should have ended. From this terribly OBVIOUS point, it didn't end, and
instead continued into territory which sort of...ruined the whole thing.
First of all, though, the performances were wonderful all around. Jude Law
was fantastically amusing and dead-on perfect, perfect, perfect. Frances O'Connor
was exceptionally endearing and had great presence on screen. The Osment kid was
quite convincing as an all-around mechanical weirdo. I would have liked some more
of the Jane character, though. Like three or four films worth.
Anyway, I'm tired so I'm not gonna go long-winded on you here. Point is,
up until it should have ended, this film had me moving along on a really nice
vibe, thinking..."yeah, I like this. Not SUPER wonderful, but really, quite
alright." That's not to say that there weren't problems with the first
two thirds or so of this film, it's just that somehow, they didn't bother me,
they didn't really piss me off until I saw that horrible last eternity of a
ruinous nightmare ending.
Here's my tip to you, kids. The first time you think it's over, get up,
run out of the theatre, and don't look back. Don't listen to your friends
who tell you that it isn't over, because it is. Move your butt!
What comes after the obvious ending is what I like to consider the
crappy sequel to A.I. No big deal, I figure, lots of films have crappy
sequels. They usually don't have the names Kubrick and Spielberg attached
to them, but hey, why not?
Anyway, before I get into the spoiler section, I'll just say that...
you probably ought to check out A.I.. Just be prepared for some disappointment.
Set that expectation nice and low, and the result will be more pleasant, I think.
To be sure, there's stuff to like in A.I., and considering the other crap that's in
the theatres, what else are you going to watch? Well, now that I think about it,
you should just go see The Fast and the Furious. Because Vin Diesel rules. Once
you've seen that, though, if you're both bored and a sci-fi slut, you should see
A.I.. Really.
SPOILER ALERT
There are really two things that frustrated me in A.I.. First was mecha design,
and second was the horrible ending sequence that takes place after our man Osment
is trapped under a Ferris Wheel for two thousand years.
Yes, it's true, some of the plot moves in a sort of...oddly contrived way, like
the way that Osment's character of David and Jude Law's Gigolo Joe hook up in the
woods. The Flesh Fair was a bit strangely done too, and I was really sort of
put off by the way that David's mom Monica dropped him off in the woods. All of this,
though, I could put out of my mind, because while it might not be the most brilliant
work, it can at least be explained as a series of odd human behaviours. That, to me,
makes sense. I understand people acting in strange ways. So, it didn't bother me...
much.
As for the design of David, it bothered me A LOT. The problem here, I think,
is that those writing and directing this film, no insult to them, but as writers and
directors, they're very obviously out of their element in terms of industrial design.
David eats spinach...whereby we discover that his artificial esophagus (A.E.) creates
a direct path to vital internal circuitry. So, the spinach lands on said circuitry and
has to be removed, as it apparently causes malfunction.
Now, I don't design robots for a living, but folks, when you put vital circuitry
into YOUR robots, you don't leave it exposed in a place that's likely to have food
dropped in it. AT THE VERY LEAST, they could have put a cover or receptacle inside. But
they didn't. AT THE VERY LEAST, they could have given David an instruction overriding
any attempt to place food into his mouth. But no, that didn't occur to them. Well,
in the real world, there's something you do to engineers that fuck up in just such a
major way...you fire their asses. If I had a design team that came up with such an
obvious and glaring oversight on MY multimillion dollar project, I'd not only fire them,
I'd hunt down their friends and family, and burn their damn house down.
I don't want to sound like I'm kidding here, though, because this is a recurring problem
in science fiction film and television. The people writing and directing don't do their
research, they don't think things through properly, they don't have the scientific mind
required to execute their vision. You've got people with degrees in film playing armchair
engineer. It COULD work, if they placed enough importance on it, but in A.I., as in so
many works, scientific sense is shoved aside in favor of what the filmmakers perceive as
their vision.
So, the spinach is cleaned out. Later, David takes his newly feeling-well brother
for a near-deadly dive into the pool, when he perceives danger to himself. It's not clear
if the water affects David's circuits in the same way that the spinach did, although to me,
it looked like maybe the circuits were only reactive to spinach, which is obviously a problem.
Aside from that, though, this incident presents us with the best example of David's GOD-AWFUL
design.
Fans of science fiction should be familiar with a man named Isaac Asimov. Now, he didn't
make artificial people for a living, except for in the tales he told. He did, however,
cover a lot of ground in terms of robot ethics, specifically related to artificially
intelligent beings. Most commonly, when people think of Asimov and robots, they think of
his Three Laws of Robotics. You might not have heard of these, but I guarantee you, everyone,
EVERYONE who has anything to do with artificial intelligence is QUITE familiar with them. They are:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Very simple, very clear, very necessary. Now, I'm not saying that those who made A.I. absolutely
HAD to follow these rules, or take into consideration the vast existing literature on the subject,
but if they did, they'd have found a wealth of useful information, much of which could have made this
a better film.
When David takes his human brother into the pool, for example...
He should have been able to assess the real harm to his being.
He should have understood the harm he was placing his human brother in.
He should have had a method of escape or defense that didn't put a member of his
human family in harm's way.
There are other problems along the same lines...back to the dining table...David watches with
fascination as his parents eat food. He doesn't understand the process at all. No clue. NO CLUE?
This is a MASSIVELY programmed robot here. Fluent use of HUMAN language. CONSTANT emulation
of HUMAN behaviour. Designed SPECIFICALLY for human interaction. Do you know any young kids that
don't understand the concept of eating food? Hmm? Finally, when his parents, including the
"imprinted" mother Monica, tell him to stop eating the spinach...he doesn't.
In other words, take David's lack of understanding of human behaviour, along with his inability
to follow clear, stern commands from his parents, and ADD TO THAT the lack of seemingly ANY
safety programming and what you have is a seriously defective product. A seriously dangerous product,
designed by a team of engineers that one would have to characterize as criminally negligent. A
team that supposedly was very experienced in the field, with years of prior work and previous
examples to work with.
So, to me, that's the design problem. Awful, inexcusable, and disappointing.
AAAAH!
Okay, so here's what REALLY bothered me about this film. David ends his seemingly
fruitless journey at the bottom of the sea, in Coney Island, with a blue fairy, under a
Ferris Wheel, the film feels as if it has come to a fine ending. There, I though, is a fine
lesson, the right message for this film. I was contented.
Credits don't roll though, a narrator comes along. Here's a note to you filmmakers out there
who are thinking about putting a narrator's voice into a film about artificially intelligent
beings...watch BLADE RUNNER with and without the narration. Then, don't ever, EVER think about
using a narrator in your A.I. film again.
That's still not the real problem, though, we're taken to a world, supposedly two thousand
years in the future, where robots rule the earth, and men are no more. The robots look like
aliens (what a relief to find out they weren't), and they're performing archaeological digs in
the frozen wastes of old Coney Island, it seems. They find David, reactivate him, and then grant
him his wish, which is to be with this mother, the human Monica.
All he ever wanted was to be told by her that she loved him. Well, that's nice, no doubt
about that, but the problem is that they bring her back with a lock of hair.
Correct me if I'm wrong, biologists, but hair contains NO genetic material...right? The
roots do, but we clearly see when David cuts it, and this bit of hair has no roots. No DNA,
impossible to replicate, no matter how much you'd like it to fit into your story. Now, if David
had YANKED some of Monica's hair, then we'd be in business...but then we'd still have another problem...
You wouldn't be bringing back Monica. You'd be creating a new being, a genetic twin. Now,
supposedly, these super-advanced robots can bring back Monica with all of her memories intact. Okay,
that, folks, is bullshit. On top of that, they can only bring her back for a single day, because
of something along the lines of "each being only taking one path through space-time" or some such
garbage. Okay, that is an enormous heaping stinking PILE of bullshit. What the hell is the cosmic
significance of a single EARTH day? If this bullshit is true, how can you bring her back at ALL?
When I heard that, I just about
slapped everyone around me, stood up, and said, "That's fucking BULLSHIT!"
But, I didn't. Because, it's just a movie. If they want to put in their semi-religious nonsense,
that's their business. But, it just makes A.I. into a train wreck. None of the last bit of this
film makes a damn bit of sense, it's just completely contrived, amateurish foolishness. Meant to
pull at the heartstrings of the audience one last time. OH,
how I hate it when filmmakers put garbage like this into their films because they lack the creativity
and intelligence to do something better. Must...get...more...tears out of them.
Well, if you shed a tear, it should be for the brilliant movie that could have been. A.I. has
glimpses of greatness, veiled in confusion, contrivance, and bullshit. Altogether, I'm glad I saw it.
I'm also glad that when the DVD comes out, it'll be easy to do the home re-cut. Just hit stop when
the Ferris Wheel hits the ground.
Even if it somehow manages to play its way through to the end, though, you can at least be calmed
by the fact that it's better than Eyes Wide Shut.
-Your Organic Friend Dave, El Cosmico.
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much as i like the movies of kubrick and spielberg, this movie appears from all reviews that i've seen to be a major let-down.
this stems from the talent behind it..."if i hadn't seen such riches, i could live with being poor".
are there any movies to look forward to this summer or is it time to renew my library membership... i think so. -
Eyes Wide Shut is a great film. It's obvious this fanboy shouldn't be writing reviews.
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To do the ending, they had to resort to some serious "Basil Exposition" - ok, so let me get this straight - we can bring back Monica using memories that we can take from the AIR and re-reate her using some biological material (we'll forgive the no DNA in hair thing) - but only for 24 hours - I'M SORRY SENOR SPIELBERGO, BUT THAT JUST DON'T FLY - look, I understand the need for David's quest to be fulfulled - he is a hero on a quest that is hard-wired into his programming - to have him not get what he is searching for would be problematic - but for fuck sake man - why? Was there no better way of ending it - I remember reading how Kubrick wanted to end it with David in a virtual world with a virtual mommy who - due to advanced technology - he believed to be real - that would have worked and wouldn't have required a novella to explain. Until the ending, I was loving the movie - inconsistencies and all - but the ending really soured it - oh yeah - and the dialogue was pretty crappy.
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Just about everybody does not like this movie. Excelent!
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Good work EL! I like the way you constructed your review. 1st half spoiler free...2nd half read at your own risk. Eyes Wide Shut was a rank piece of trash...the piano music at the end...the 'Austin Powers' like way they put plants and people in front of the naughty bits...ugh
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I get the very strong impression that there are extremely mixed feelings about AI at the Ain't it Cool HQ. Most everyone has found something of value in it (with the exception of Moriarty, but he's so old, it's almost like his reactions don't count), and everyone has found some problems with it. I don't think I've read one review that absolutely LOVED it. I still believe this is the kind of film that is going to take a few years to fully appreciate. Viewing it once and forgetting it will be the biggest mistake most people will make. Like 2001, I hated that movie when it first came out. But then, about the same time Star Wars came out, I watched it again and thought it wasn't as bad as I thought. Since then, I have watched it a number of time and, while I still couldn't completely explain what happened at the end, I have grown to appreciate it and consider it a great film for it's time. I think this is what will happen with AI. It will not be fully appreciated for years to come. The biggest problem this film will have to overcome is the name of it's director. This film will be unfairly compared to the rest of his work and be judged a failure because of it. Only time and patient will finally tell, but I believe, like David, in the end, this film's wishes will come true. And all you nay-sayers now will be eating your words ten years from now.
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Jun 29, 2001 4:57:36 AM CDT
This is the ending...the ending of our story..the ending....
by terry_1978
Everyone who has reviewed A.I. has said that the ending involving the alien-like mechas is unneccesary, but I agree with Falcon-1 that later on down the line, say another decade or so, people are gonna hail this movie as a masterpiece, regardless of what is thought of it now. Kubrick's trademark is ambiguous endings, and though it may seem tacked on, I kind of expected a kind of New-Ageist type revalation at the end.
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...we get another "review" referring to this as a Kubrick movie. People, LET IT GO. Unless they rolled Kubrick's bones behind the camera, it's a SPIELBERG movie with some Kubrick influences. Perhaps the reason why AICN seems to be about the only place filled with negative reviews is because the people here can't seem to realize that Kubrick isn't the director? McFly<--
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It's me, the ONLY talkbacker who liked the film! I see your point about the Spinach and the pool incident. On the Spinach, you are right, Why would they build him with vital parts exposed to possible damage? The pool scene is different. If they built David to be as real as possible, to act as a real child - a real child might have fallen into the pool bringing his brother with him. But a real child would have let go of his brother as soon as they hit the water. These scenes were to illustrate David's differences, being a robot vs. a real boy.
I disagree with everyone about the sci-fi ending. I liked it. It was possibly the most important part of the film - it's what the film, on the whole, is about - it's what the film was leading to (Spielberg & Kurbrick are/were too smart and deliberate to make a "mistake" as everyone thinks). David becomes the one remnant of Earth's past, "living" evidence of what humankind was about. In Spielberg/Kubrick's eyes, we are about "love".
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Just been reading all of the AI reviews here. Wow, most of the AICN crew really had issues with this movie. I thought it was great. (SPOILER TALK TO FOLLOW!).
I am not sure what I think of the entire ending sequence after David is frozen. I too think maybe the film would have been better served had it ended with him trapped under the ferris wheel. But overall, I thought it was a very well done, thoughtful movie. People freaking out over how robots and human cloning REALLY work need to remember this is a freaking fairy tale!! They can bring his mom back, but just for a day. That's the important thing, not the science of it. How does that fact effect David?
Mostly though, I just have to bitch about Moriarty's review, because damn, I disagree with a lot of it.
First off, I knew those were robots at the end, not aliens. And I hadn't read anything before I saw the movie to tell me so. How did I know? Because it's clear based on the plot of the film and the look of the "creatures"! Spielberg is constantly accused of over stating things, but when he simply presents something like those super advanced robots, suddenly it needs to be explained in words what they are? It's obvious they're not aliens!
Second, Moriarty accuses Spielberg of being ridiculously Hollywood in his casting in AI. WTF? Yeah, because we all know that Sam Robards and Frances O'Conner are SUCH huge stars. I mean, that was so distracting having them play the parents. I will agree that the Chris Rock vocal cameo was very out of place, but the Robin Williams one was fine. He wasn't going off improv style... and as for Ben Kingsley and Meryl Streep, wow, I didn't realize that was them. They're talented actors who don't always use the same speaking voice, and it wasn't in any way jarring to hear them. And dude, you're bitching about the fact that some guy from Just Shoot Me is in it beause it makes you want to see more of his character? Who the hell cares? I didn't recognize him, maybe because he's on Just Shoot Me! Even if I had, I realize that actors play different roles, some large, some small, and that maybe the guy from Just Shoot Me only has one scene in AI, and that's ok. Hell, Kubrick himself could be far more random in his casting. How about Thomas Gibson, Dharma's Greg himself, in a nothing part in Eyes Wide Shut? (though I liked imagining that happened because Stanley was just a HUGE Dharma and Greg fan). -
...isn't this just another Star Trek episode?
Before you tear me limb from limb, I KNOW this project has been developed since the beginning of time (or something) but 'android that wants to be a human' is soooooo clich -
Can't wait to see the damn thing today so I can read spoiler articles. **** Just thought I'd share.
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An AI review! Not again! I see the future: hundreds and hundreds of LOTR reviews! And Harry's PC will get an overflow error before Episode 2! And that will be a complete disaster, argh!
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Especially about the whole "throwing-science-out-the-window" issue. First off, How in the hell did the earth supposedly go through an ICE AGE in just 2000 years?? WTF? Okay, granted they could probably explain that one away with, Oh there was a great big ol' war with nuclear bombs and they had a nuclear winter etc. etc. etc. But what about the damn amphibicopter? 2000 fuckin years later the shit looks brand new?? Does spielburgers psuedo-science team have any idea the amount of pressure inside THAT MUCH ICE? never mind the fact that a glacier would absolutely rend the ship to pieces...Including the world trade center bldgs they'd be rubble 2000 years from now anyways..REMEMBER, they are mostly STEEL GIRDERS beneath that glass exterior. Okay and now the kicker....How in the hell does a 2000+ (remember what year that was built, 1920) year-old coney-friggin island ferris wheel survive under the ice? Ice does not preserve STEEL like that! Jesus, Spielburger next time get a REAL SCIENTIST to do some research for you...okay...okay...rant done....
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Recent reviews of
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Here are some other major trade publication reviews for
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..but it was a damn fine film.
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MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD - They lost me in "A.I." about ten minutes into the movie, when William Hurt started talking about how childless couples would love to purchase a robot child - a child who never ages. Excuse me? What kind of twisted morons would want a child who never matures? Who wouldn't be creeped out by the idea of a child incapable of growing up? Most people who understand Peter Pan realize the James M. Barrie knew there was something very, very wrong with a child who doesn't grow up (although Spielburg seems to have missed that point before when he made "Hook.") There were a lot of other things about this film that made no sense. What the hell was the point of William Hurt giving David a quest via programming Dr. Know with a false answer. Just by going to Dr. Know, David showed he was following a dream. So what was proved by having him go to New York? I know this thing is a fantasy, but it should try to make some kind of sense by its own rules - this film doesn't make any sense by any rules.
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For those who require spoiler warnings. Design flaws. I hate to state the obvious here but David was created to be as close to human as possible, and the fact of the matter is humans have extreme design flaws. We act impulsively and irrationally. for instance. (Like the pool scene.) If you expected David to act like the robots of your three laws, I think you are overlooking the main point of the film. Now the spinach thing is a valid point, if not a little nitpicky. Okay, DNA in hair. I work in a mo bio lab and asked opinons on this one. Their IS DNA in hair. You are correct that the roots contain much better quality of DNA. But regular hair contains enough DNA that it can be amplified (PCR) using todays technology. So it is conceivable in my mind that in 2000 years a culture of highly evolved robots could perfect mo bio to the point where a human could be cloned from a handful of hair. Now bring back Monicas memories. WHo knows about that one. But here is a cool idea, if you could build a superduper powered telescope and send it through a wormhole and then point it back at the position of Earth at a given point in history, you could actually watch history unfold on tv. So perhaps the bots have developed something along these lines, but maybe they're telescope doesn't read light waves, but brain waves or some sci fi bs. Personally. I think it WAS BS. I think the Bots were LYING to David, the way parents lie to their kinds about Santa Clause. They gave him what he wanted and then euthanized him.
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Saw AI last night at a screening in Toronto SUPER-SPOILERS Summary: loved it until the end - I give it a 6 (-2 for a crappy ending, so the rest is an 8). Within minutes of the film starting, I switched my mindset from "serious, sci-fi dark human drama" into "faux serious, campy sci-fi, dark human drama" - basically, I surrendered myself to the feel of the movie thought Haley Joel Osmont was great - didn't really see a flaw in his acting, except... the writing was really crappy - I'm talking about the dialogue and voice-overs I mean, the transitions were fairly strained, but that didn't bother me as much as the shit that the actors were spewing ("I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the WORLD!?") But even that didn;t bother me that much, because SO MUCH OF IT WORKED David worked so well. Teddy worked well. The mother, although flat, worked well. Then the jungle and Gigolo Joe - even the Flesh Fair was okay - although a litle much. Loved Gigolo Joe - thought Jude Law was amazing. Another thing that worked - robots acted within their reasonably defined limits as robots - Jude Law was perfect at that. Okay - so all that was good. Now the bad - aka "What was with Basil Exposition there at the end?" TOO MUCH EXPLAINING - Allan Hobby explaining at the beginning (okay, that's standard Kubrick -would't be surprised if he wrote that) - Ben Kingsley's Voice Overs, Allan Hobby again later. A whole lot of explaining and not a lot of stuf happening - like Allan Hobby having to explain everything about how they got David to go there - a better writer would have figured out how to let David learn that without the "Basil". So that kinda sucked. So did much of the dialogue. I can't remember all of it now, but most of it really sucked But then... the ending - the absolutely crappy, shitty, made-me-angry ending "okay...so....um....here's the deal....ummmm....we can't resurrect your dead mother....ummmm....from the memories we managed to grab out of the air......uhhh...unless......unless?.....ah....right.....unless we have some of their DNA......sorry....wished we could help kid.....see....ya....oh...uh.....what?......oh shit man......uhhhh....hold on a second..........ok, ok, ok, yeah, ok.......okay....we can do it for ya kid, but only for 24 hours.......how's that sound Senor Spielbergo?" "Yeah, yeah, whatever...godammmit, you made me lose count...$100 million, $200 million, $300 million..." From exactly how far up their asses did they pull that one? I mean come on. And the super-AI sitting next to him, explaining the world? The X-Files mythology had better plot resolution than this. I immediately thought that it would have been a better ending to have them re-create a "virtual" world for David to live in with his mommy - based on his memories of her...and he could live there for eternity - because the point was that he was not at fault for his quest - his journey was pure - based on his programming - so he should have gotten the best reward possible - to live in perpetuity in his perfect world - with his loving mommy and nothing else - kinda like that Star Trek episode with Moriarty...oh crap...maybe that's where I'm pulling this one... The thing is that I know that this is how Kubrick wanted it to end - with David 200 years in the future, all mankind gone and super-evolved AI's running the world - did you actually think those were "aliens"? But very simply, there was only one way to make that ending work - don't have them speak - it should have been evocative, mysterious and wonderful. Instead it was like attending Ben Kingsley's lecture on the history of the last (next) 2000 years. Anyway, you get my point. What this film needed was a better writer and a stronger producer - someone who would say to Spielberg "this won't work like this. Its too much explaining....get me Quentin Tarantino, David Mamet and Christopher McQuarrie...and that Nolan guy who did MEMENTO - anyone who can write a fucking story! NOW!!!" and a better ending. Be Seeing You PKD (aka: Number 6)
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But props to El Cosmico for this excellent analysis of A.I. as a poor excuse for science fiction.
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Is that it is also a "human" day. From what I gather the human biological clock runs slightly longer than 24 hrs. But that was how I interpretted the the reason for "one day only", the person was fall a sleep and drift out of consciousness and for whatever reason could never regain consciousness.
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Lets say we get together for lunch today so I can shove my foot down your throat....okay...excuse me. It was an accidental stretching of the talkback, but it shows the kind of irony inherent in the film. Schpeilburger "streched" the lame ass ending way too far....
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Well so far, from the reviews I have read, its about split down the middle between those who liked it and those that didnt. Go check out Paul Tatara's and Paul Clinton's review over at www.cnn.com (imho, Tatara is the most rational and level headed critic out there today.) And I guarantee, after we all see it today/tonight, we will all be having the same arguments tomorrow.
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A series of negative reviews for AI from the website that raved about Godzilla, Armageddon, The Mummy Returns, The Fast and The Furious, etc. I'd say there are some serious credibility issues here... I saw AI last night, and it was astounding. This and Memento are the only films I've seen this year that seem to say anything original. Get off your ass and go see AI. Don't believe the AICN hype. People are slaves to their expectations. Just sit back and enjoy the ride. I even liked the ending (except for the hair moment) As far as the thing about recreating the Mom for one day?... Silly? Maybe. Unscientific? Gimme a break. It's a haunting fucking fairy tale.
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Jun 29, 2001 8:33:23 AM CDT
I think you guys have some SERIOUS self-esteem problems if you a
by psalmolive
I think you guys have some SERIOUS self-esteem problems if you are going to let any reviewer tell you what movie you should see or not. Especially if you let them change your mind.
Everybody likes movies for different and complete valid reasons. Film is a completely subjective medium. -
I am not a kid. I am a very sophisticated filmgoer - I go to the Toronto FIlm Fest every year and see roughly 25 films in 9 days. I believe I have very good taste, preferring offbeat and independent gems to big-box-office-bang. That being said, I am not an artsy film-fucker. My favorite movie of this year is Memento - this is all context - THE POINT IS THAT MY OPINION IS VALID - AND I HAD SERIOUS PROBLEMS WITH AI - I wanted to love it - I even lowered my expectations so that I wouldn;t be disappointed - and for 2 hours, I wasn't. But that ending just sucked - AND LET ME BE CLEAR - what I hated about the ending wasn't the CONTENT of it - it was the EXECUTION of it - thematically, I had no problem with the time jump, the super-advanced AI's, or with the concept of giving David some kind of wish fulfillment - all that is great and offers the possibility for very evocative and profound film-making - WHAT WE GOT INSTEAD WAS A 3 MINUTE FUCKING HISTORY LESSON TO ALLOW FOR A NEAT RESOLUTION. It was poorly handled and it left a bad taste in my mouth regarding the film as a whole. Look, it just sucks when you have 2 hours of quality (if uneven at times) filmmaking but can't find a way to wrap up the story without inviting Basil Exposition in to say a few words of explanation. Spielberg could have done it. He pretty much did it in Close Encounters - in that film, we were left with wonderment and awe - here we are left with lecturer's notes - look at it this way - who was Ben Kingsley explaining that "2000 years of history" to - David or the audience? Clearly it was the audience - and when a film needs to stop, less than 10 minutes before the end, to provide several minutes of exposition (which, by the way, had NOTHING to do with the rest of the film...just an aside) - then I say that the film as a whole suffers - and as I say, until the ending, I was along, hook, line and sinker - I was loving it - and then it was crushed by my 10th grade sceince teacher (who happens to sound like Ben Kingsley)....Oh yeah, and someone else said it best...if Kubrick had seen the Dr. Know scene (to paraphrase Woody Allen), he'dve never stopped throwing up. Overall, it is still a quality film, but the ending was SUCH a letdown that it spoiled much of what came before it - Kinda like Cast Away - resolution is tough, but a film needs its final act.
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If the ending had been handled in even a mediocre fashion, then I would give the film an 8 out of 10 - it has so many interesting facets and is great entertainment. But when I see an ending as brutal as that, it lowers the rating to a 6 out of 10 - and let me repeat - THEMATICALLY the ending works beautifully - it rewards David for what is essentially a valid and pure quest - its not his fault that he was programmed to love his mommy above anythig else - or that his quest to become a real boy would be so all-consuming. All that is great stuff, but a real screenwriter would have been able to show us that without the lengthy exposition or ANY of the voice-overs. - Fuck!! I could do it without a single word of dialogue between the super-intelligent AI's and David - and the nit would have worked. But, I think the problem was that Steven didn't trust the audience and, by doing so, he cucked all the emotion out of what could have been a very cathartic scene.
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I come to AICN to get a different POV on movies than I'll normally get from the main stream press. But the reviews and TB concerning AI are so angry that I can only imagine that you folks have been on the Rickie Lake or Jerry Springer shows one too many times and its affected your minds.
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I am angry cause I felt let down at the end. I felt like there was a lot of great stuff in the film and that Spielberg did a great job with most of the material - but he jsut plain dropped the ball with his execution of the resolution - and that led to my negative reaction to the film. I still think people should see it - and it is miles above most of the crap out there - it felt like I had been taken on this great journey around the world, seen all sorts of great places and beautiful, inspiring sights, but then was left stranded in the middle of some nowhere - a journey of discovery is one thing, but without a strong resolution, its just a vacation.
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I have been reading the posts about AI on this site for weeks, but I held off until after seeing the movie. Now that I've seen it, I've got a couple of things to say. Not in a long time have I walked out of a movie theatre feeling nauseous. And you know what, I FUCKING LOVED THIS MOVIE. El, you obviously didn't listen to a single of word of William Hurt's last monologue. He gives you so many answers about David's flaws. *SPOILERS*
The reason for David's erratic behavior is that he is the first mecha to cross the boundary of developing feelings on his own. The desire to eat, the fear of being hurt...these are confusions of a mind in development, whether it be mecha or orga. As a fan of Sci-Fi, how can you possibly put up your argument about the DNA? In the year 4000+ who knows what a society will be capable of doing. How can you people possibly rail a science fiction movie for creating a theory or idea? As for the ending of this movie, I thought it was completely warranted. Granted, I did not need the narration, it does question the intelligence of the audience to an extent. However, the final act is integral because it shows us the absolute eternity of pain for this character. Imagine having a love that strong and a loss that great that spanned millenia? It hurt to think about it. Yes call me sappy, I don't really give a shit. Movies are meant to tear us apart and then let us rebuild with what they gave us to take away. As far as the futuristic robots giving David his wish...imagine if we discovered a being that was the answer to all our questions about the universe. We we would give it/them any goddamn thing they wanted. As for other aspects of the movie, Haley Joel Osment is absolutely scary. I know some of the people posting are actors as am I and I can't believe I'm watching a 13 year old give a performance like this, he isn't just a good child actor, he can be ranked now with adults and graded as such. Jude Law is wonderful as per usual. *End Spoilers*
Finally, I would like to say that I NEVER lowered my expectations for this movie, especially not after reading all the bullshit on this site. For people reading and deciding not to go to the movie because a bunch of fanboys have spinach issues is ridiculous. For god's sake, if Fast and Faster is being mentioned in the same breath, the review cannot have all that much merit. I'm not saying everyone will love this movie as I did, I'm just saying go in and watch it with an open mind. It isn't drivel and it sure isn't a movie to be entertained by. I can't stop thinking about it...some of what is there is truly haunting. -
On rottentomatoes.com it has like 74% fresh. You're average movie this summer is about 20. Pearl Harbor was 25, Mummy Returns 40, Tomb Raider 12. So AI is awesome when you look at what else has come out.
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See, you have to remember that Contact was based on a book - and the book ended exactly the way the movie did - with whatever her name was meeing the alien and it comes to her in the form of her father. AI's ending was part of Kubrick's original vision of the film - but in both cases the final film failed in terms of execution - they could not present what are admittedly difficult ideas in a way that satisfies the requirements of the material. But my reaction is much the same - although AI is the superior film - that the ending took some of the life out of the film, rather than injecting it with a final moment of stength - as resolutions are supposed to do.
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[There's a spoiler futher down in this post.] This boggles my mind: people who call A.I. a bad movie, and then complain that they didn't understand the ending! If you didn't get it, then of course it will seem like a bad movie. But the truth -- what this movie is actually about -- is beautiful. Here's a clue.. (BIG SPOILER!) Think Blue Fairy = God.... now see it again, and then draw your own conclusions....
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or does it seem like the gang here at AICN have been wetting themselves just to get a shot at skewering AI? Since I have no idea who Moriarty and El Cosmico are I won't say that they have no talent. For all I know they are Scorsese and Coppola. That isn't the point though. While ElCosmico and Ms. DuPont had some nice things to say about AI, you couldn'y leave their review thinking anything good about the film. Moriarty on the other hand seemed to take this film as a personal affront to his being. Why? I have to believe that the worst Spielberg movie (Hook?) is better than many other directors' best efforts (Simon West). Also, this is a movie that had two distinctly different creators. Kubrick worked on this for almost 12 years before he died. I don't care if Spielberg takes writing credit or not, it's Kubricks story. Just try to imagine if Spielberg filmed a remake of A Clockwork Orange. His happy ending head would explode. I personally have not seen AI yet, but I am really looking forward to it. By the way, to all the people complaining about the forced narration, when does Spielberg NOT do that? At what point in Close Encounters, Raiders, ET, or Schindler's List did he not ram the story down the audiences throat? That is not a fault, it's concise storytelling.
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For Weapon-X and anyone else who truly can't fathom why anyone would like Eyes Wide Shut. It's a masterpeice of cinema. Kubrick took us on a journey inside the darkest places of our own souls, laying bare our most closely guarded fantasies and secrets. Just because you don't relate to such a soul searching peice of work, is no reason to accuse the rest of us of Kubrick-idolatry. There are real reasons that many people truly love EWS. Believe it.
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Ouch.
I knew we were in truoble when Japan hated it. That was the death card, serious. Who coined the term "Mecha" anyways? I can't imagine Stevey going on unhipped to Masamune Shirow, or I guess I don't want to. Talk about exploring the existential ramifications of artificial smarts, Ghost in the Shell (manga) did it with style.
Yeah, I'll see this movie for the pretty pictures, can it beat D.A.R.Y.L. though? C'mon that scene with Daryl fakes his death by crashing the blackbird spy plane in the lake! That was awsome!
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I saw A.I. last night w/o having read any reviews and I am glad. When these guys/gals go into movies to "review" or more accurately, critique them, they instantly put a wall between them and the movie that limits their enjoyment. I thought A.I. was very good and it used the pinocchio metaphor in a much more satisfying way than I expected. It was everything good sci-fi should be; it took me someplace I've never been, showed me stuff I've never seen, and introduced me to folks I almost know and can almost understand, finding themselves in a situation I wouldn't know how to handle either if I were them. And it was entertaining. I luv'd the ending. It was unexpected. B/c of the ending and the narration throughout, the movie lends itself to a broader audience; I could watch this flick w/ my mom and she can follow along as well as those more keen on sci-fi. The only thing that took me out of the movie was John Williams score in the first quarter of the movie. I just felt it was too heavily cued (and i feel JW is a god the kind of which will not be seen for many generations).
Don't let anyone decide for you if this movie is good, just find out for yourself, then come back and read the "reviews" and compare. Chance r you won't be disappointed by A.I. unless, deep down, that is what you want. -
Come on - the narraction at the end was awful - it was so forced - the problem was that it was there to explain to the audience - not to the character. It was just very poorly handled - I liked the IDEA of the ending, just not how it was handled. Rather than being involving, it just seemed out of place - Ben Kingsley's speech to David - the 2000 years of history - was one of the worst written monologues I have ever seen - and coming so close to the end, it really sucked the life out of what could have been a beautiful and tragic ending to a thoughtful and engaging film.
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"Hook", not one of my favorite films. Still, I am reserving comment about "A.I." until I see it. Good or bad, I'll give it a chance, but remember...this is a Spielberg film, not a Kubrick film. Its like saying "Big Brass Ring" is an Orson Welles film when he never directed it as he was dead before one frame even was shot. Its wrong for Spielberg to even have Kubrick's name on it unless it was on a single card that read: "In memory of Stanley Kubrick" or something appropriate.
I would like to see Harry as a gif of "Gigalo Joe" though. That would be funny. -
One of the most poorly marketed films, ever, I'll say that. It's a tale of morality that was packaged as a sex thriller! I don't think I've ever seen a movie about marriage and relationships that was more personal. Bill is surrounded daily by temptation, yet one single unhappy conversation with his wife sets the ball in motion. For the rest of the film he's walking a tightrope. He becomes obssessed with sex and makes the dangerous mistake of finally trying to mesh fantasy and reality and almost loses everything in the process. I think it's a profound film. The orgy scene was stupid, I will give you that. There had to be a better way to endanger him than the Horny Carnival Club.
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I know what you mean about the ending narration, but I think of it as something that's there to set the tone. Like I said, I'm a big Kubrick fan, and I tend to think of the narration in the same way narration is used in A Clockwork Orange, and Barry Lindon. The characters go through insane journeys which take them through radically schizophrenic circumstances. The only way you are going to get anyone to accept what's going on is to create the impression that what you are watching is a tale that is being told to you, not to explain what's happening per say. I understand this is almost a personal preference thing. I personally think that Blade Runner is better off without the narration. In this movie it didn't bother me either way, but I can understand why it bothers some people. In the end I just think this is the kind of movie which forces you to make up your mind, and most people hate that.
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If we consider that all of Spielberg's films are about that wonderful human quality called "hope", then we see the real focus of A.I. If we consider how at the Academy Awards the other year, that when talking about Kubrick, he brought to mind the wonderful, hopeful qualities of Kubrick's films, then we see the real focus of this so-called collaboration. Since all of Kubrick's films are clearly about hope, and clearly all about subtly manipulating audience emotions, unlike Spielberg's films, then we see the real focus of A.I. If we consider the trends in Spielberg's films within the last decade, the struggle of the oppressed minorities, the anti-Sematism, Spielberg's continuing martyrdom of children, the symbol of his own confused self-hatred as represented by children in his films, then we see the real focus of A.I. If we consider that the quickest way to make a buck with a Hollywood film is to pander to the audience while manipulating them, without forcing them to put any effort into the movie-viewing experience, at risk of NOT creating a blockbuster, then we see the real focus of A.I.
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I apologize, in advance, for the length of this review/rebuttal, but after seeing the movie last night at Universal CityWalk in LA, I felt I had to chime in. As should be obvious, the opinions herein are those of me, myself, and I, and no one else.
I begin my review by making a couple of observations about those that I have read already, (hence, the -
I agree, it's kind of like when people say 2001 or EWS or now AI are slow or boring. It's a style of filmmaking that some people embrace and others hate. I think your comment about personal preference actually extends to this whole movie. I mean, how many middle of the road reviews have we seen or heard? I haven't talked to anyone who just said...ehh, it was alright. The style of the film doesn't really allow for that.
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My sister really got me thinking awhile ago. We were talking about EWS, then we got to talkin bout Cruise and Kidman's real-life breakup and then she dropped a bombshell, "Do you think Kubrick chose Tom and Nicole b/c he saw were their marriage was going?" It is an interesting thing to ponder given the movies ambiguous ending. That question caused me to see Kubrick in an entirely new light and raises my view of EWS as well....and go see A.I., the best sci-fi movie of the year thus far.
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Kubrick dorks want to make it about the movie being disappointing, but it seems this movie is very complex and is inciting some deep reflection and debate. What else could you ask for. There are both positive and negative reviews out there. The fact that Harry is mostly posting negative reviews over here, and when he posts a positive one trying to flood it out makes me think there are other motives at work. Harry's treatment of this movie leads me to question his integrity and I will definitely put less credence in this site from now on.
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why do all scream about the ending?
"the movie was great but the last 20min sucked!"
Thats what i am hearing and i only can think of two things:
1)Or is the ending so briliant that not too many got it...
or
2)The ending is the only thing not brilliant and so everyone sais it sucks just becouse they didn't like the ending, and to all those your doing this your stupid and not worth to be critics! -
just saw "AI". go see it!!!!!
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Yes, it's that last half hour that separates the man (Stanley) from the boy (Steven). I only wish that if he really needed to include the final fifth, Spielberg would have had the courage (or gall) to learn Kubrick's greatest lesson: that the difference between brilliant and pedantic is in showing, not saying, and silence, not speech.
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I mean, it didn;t have to be silent, but something less than a history lecture would hav ebeen preferred. But again, this all gets missed because many people seem to have forgotten the nature of drama - that it needs a third act that resonates back through the entire movie - and this ending didn't really do that because it got lost in trying to explain everything rather than just showing David getting his wish - excellent point - SHOW, DON'T TELL!!
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Jun 29, 2001 12:06:49 PM CDT
I'm a naughty little robot boy and Paula Poundstone is going to
by uncapie
Tee hee.
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so this is the first time i have posted anything on this site and i have to say...whatever. just saw it. not bad. still thinking about it. not life changing. also, saw the lotr trailer in front of it and i have to say...i have NO desire to see this movie.
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What do you think is the significance of Gigolo Joe's final words: "I am. I was."?
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SImple - he is asserting his existence - that even if he is simply a robot, that he existed - obviously he is going to be estroyed, but the point is that, artificial intelligence or otherwise, he was a real thing that did things on its own. I thought it was one of the mor epowerful bits of the film.
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At the risk of repeating my earlier post, (which ended up way up at the top of the Talk Back for some reason), WE DON'T know what Kubrick would have done with this film and we need to stop acting like we do. We are FANS. Spielberg was a FRIEND. They discussed this project together at great length. And the fact that he kept trying to get Spielberg to direct it along with his continual fascination at the ability of Spielberg to "make this sort of movie", leads me to believe that Spielberg may have hit closer than any of us know in terms of what Kubrick may have wanted. But the bottom line is: I don't know for sure and neither does anyone else, (with the possible exception of Spielberg and Kubrick's family).
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Overall I was pleasantly surprised. A Kubrick-Spielberg collaboration could go wrong in so many ways, but this one stayed more or less on-course (up to the final sequence, at least.)
What's suprising is the number of people around here who constantly gripe about being fed nothing but crap, but who will turn around and send back a thick steak because it's just a tad overdone. -
I just saw AI on my lunchbreak (the noon show was almost packed) and I thought it was brilliant! Despite all of the negative to lukewarm reviews on this and other sites, I came out of the theater feeling like the movie was well worth the price of a ticket...and I will probably take my wife to see it this weekend. As with any movie, there are flaws, but they were easy to overlook. This movie made the bad memories of all the mindless drivel I have seen lately (Mummy 2, Pearl Harbor, Evolution, M.Rouge) go away.
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Jun 29, 2001 1:34:34 PM CDT
Your review: too literal. A.I. is clearly a FANTASY, not Sci Fi
by gholaltd
Any geek who goes to see this film thinking along the lines of the reviewer here will of course be 'bothered' by all the inconsistencies, because what they won't realize is that this film is NOT SCIENCE FICTION. Robots, yes, but do robots have to automatically = SF? I think not. Here is a film that must be viewed with different eyes. (Not, dare I say, eyes wide shut?)I do agree that the 'extra' ending made the film somewhat less streamlined, but I don't agree with his niggling little nitpicky detail arguments. Who cares about the spinach, etc. It's the overall journey that matters.
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Nevrman, I'd hardly lump Moulin into a category with those other movies. It did at least have some artistic vision.
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I was caught up in the moment. Moulin Rouge was visionary if not satisfying, and I can't really compare it to the true garbage that is this summer movie season...I was just disappointed with it. That said, my position remains firm: AI is a brilliant film and is a worthy final curtain call for Stanley Kubrick, and another great film by Spielberg. Can't wait to see it again!!!
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maybe I missed something..but how do you know if they are Aliens or Robots? I just assumed Aliens....either way, it totally ruined the movie.
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There is a point and time where I won't watch movies by a certain director. Generally if they do more than one movie that is so awful or mediocre and dull, I will put them on my no see list. For me it was Jursasic Park 2 the Lost World that did it in for me. A movie that I wished for the cute child gymnist to be eaten by velociraptors. That and the rest of Spielberg's movies tend to be too crowd pleasing and hold back too much, or in other words too tame. So I won't watch this movie out of personal choice, not any sort of critics AICN or not.
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Oh yea Madaris (or whatever)the movie wasn't thought out well at all.. What a moron
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Jun 29, 2001 2:38:57 PM CDT
45 minutes of brilliance, 1 and a half hours of uneven lameness.
by batutta
The first 45 minutes of this movie are extraoidinarily moving, but once the Pinnochio shit starts, it goes downhill fast. The resulting hour and a half is sporadically engaging eye candy, but mostly dull and treacly. Spielberg should have stayed with the family drama and dumped the Pinnochio crap.
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Whether you like the movie or not, it's apparently over your head if you've reduced it to sucking and blowing. See some of PKD's comments if you need help criticizing the film. At least he's constructive.
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This is a great film. I know I
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Jun 29, 2001 3:00:09 PM CDT
Aliens vs. Robots: Why would evolved robots have to know what hu
by hupplescat
Wouldn't they be ancestors of David? That's the least plausible thing in the movie if they are robots instead of aliens***I don't understand any of you. The movie was horribly paced until Monica released David back into the wild. And for all of the Rouge City scenes why did it look so sparse? Couldn't we have seen more of it? Does Spielberg not have the resources to do something so grand?*** I didn't think it really got interesting UNTIL 2000 years later. Ending it under the ferris wheel would have been completely blah.***I don't understand why people aren't complaining more about the Pinnochio link. Why the hell is it just accepted? Couldn't there have been another rationale? That is what makes the movie stale. That is what makes it unoriginal. And I still liked it.
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Did anyone like it better the second time? What were your thoughts?
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If I may be so bold, Posibbly coud Spielberg have put in the narration specifically so he could get a classic fairy tale ending? But instead of "... and they lived happily ever after", it was something more along the lines of "finally David was human enough to dream, so he went to sleep forever in his mother's arms". I'm paraphrasing, or maybe I'm missing the point entirely. But that's what I took away from the ending. I wouldn't be surprised to go back and find all the narration so purposefully fairytale-like. Without the narration throughout, that final line would have been even more jarring, and the concept of a robot boy sleeping forever in the arms of the only one he is capable of loving is powerful, indeed. So, needless to say, the ending worked for me. You have to be willing to suspend your disbelief (that's a REALLY wierd thing to have to say on a sci-fi geek board). But this movie earned my suspension of disbelief. In the end, it was absolutely poetic.
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The more I think about this movie, the more I fall in love with it. Dare I say it (maybe it's premature. Only time will tell), Spielberg may have made the finest moden fairytale for the nihilistic age thus far. I think Kubrick would be proud, but what do I know. I DO know there is lots of food for thought in this film. And this film attempts to work on so many levels that it's probably worthy of a dissertation. Whether it succeeded to work on all those levels is what's open for discussion, not that it tried.
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The more I hear about this flick, it sounds like a cross between "Astro Boy" and "Pinocchio".
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No, Unicapie. It's more like a cross between Blade Runner and Wizard of OZ, despite the constant barrage of Pinocchio references.
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I seriously thought this movie was a wonderful change of pace considering the mountain of trash being spoon fed to us this summer. It should have ended with David praying to the Blue Fairy but those last 20 minutes were forgivable. It was way too sentimental... but I loved the rest of the movie far too much to criticize the ending. Give it a chance, people.
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The boy robot, the teddy bear and the pimp-bot travel to Rouge City to visit Dr. Know, an omnicient being, that's a huge face behind a curtain, who turns out to be nothing more than a glamorized search engine. Is it obvious enough?
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I feel bitchslapped and raped by Steven Spielberg for so long, and then he does something to make me love him again.
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I have something for you, but your e-mail is coming back undeliverable. If you don't mind, e-mail me a blank page and I'll send it back to you.
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Before I see this movie, let's see what it has going for it...
Spielberg: -2 points
Kubrick: -4 points
Spielberg fans dislike: -2 points
Kubrick fans like: -4 points
Ripping off Pinnochio: -3 points
No thanks... I'll pass on this movie. Practically every movie made nowadays is garbage, anyways [sigh]. -
Your right, the movies of yesteryear were where it's at. I mean all those classics like Dr. Strangelove, A Clockwork Orange, Close Encounters...the list goes on and on.
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I agree Simian.. I think a lot of people (ie probably the average film goer) will have a hard time accepting the movie because they can't accept David... Some just won't understand the idea behind Haley Joel's character. It's really hard to feel emotional toward a character who play's a robot.. Some won't be able to get into it b/c of that exact point. Like when David won't let go of his brother and they both fall into the pool or where David destroys the duplicate robot of himself. I think those scenes might contribute to people not really giving a crap what happens to little Haley Joel...I still loved every second of the movie though.
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Pinocchio was a puppet, not a little boy.
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How about the teddy bear running through the flesh fair, trying to find his boy?
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This coming from a guy who names himself after a character in a Pee Wee Herman movie...
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That is a great moment. I was really afraid that the bear was going to be a mistake (jar jar style). Somehow he managed to give it enough depth to avoid it becoming a "cutesy" sidenote.
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Jun 29, 2001 4:10:16 PM CDT
Just give me the damn jacket, Jude! You Crisco-in-your-hair PRIC
by user id indeed!
Rrrgh! MMMPH!!! Okay. OKAY!!! Sorry. I admit it, Law. You have the jacket. The Sparkle Jacket of Funk is yours. I cannot have it. You are the better man/robot prostitute than I. And instead of acknowledging my pleas for the SJoF, you give it to eBay to auction. Hey, no, great. Don't worry about it. You're great. The jacket was yours to give to eBay. That's fine. I don't want your filthy, greasy, ugly, why-can't-I-be-Mick Fleetwood PIECE OF SHIT JACKET FROM HELL!!! WAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!!!! Give it to eBay, fully aware that I don't have two thousand dollars to bid with!!! I'll stick to used porn tapes, Tenchi Muyo keychains, and bootleg Sifl and Olly CDs when it comes to eBay, thanks a lot, asshole!!! Let people bid on your damned beautiful jacket! I don't want it! BASTARD! Give the money from the yuppie guppie who's pompous enough to buy the damned thing to charity! By all means! Like those head-of-charities fat cats even give the damned money to their charities! We in the real, non-robot-prostitute world know the truth, Law! We know where those pricks are spending it! Glug glug glug! Hear that?! I'm making glug glug glug noises, Law! That means they're buying alcohol! Not giving the money to the charities! Alcohol! Glug! Glug!! GLUG!!! So what do you have?! Huh?!? A bunch of drunk charities, some bloated pig with a jacket that doesn't even fit, and YOU! You, Law! You who didn't care that I had little Haley Joel tied to a damn Futon in my BASEMENT! You, who didn't care that I was hanging from my ankles off the Gateway Arch with "GIVE ME LAWS JACKET" painted across my back! For twenty-nine HOURS!!! YOU, who couldn't give a rat's ass that I went on a clothing strike for twenty minutes of my wasted time, LAW!!! YOU!! You. With the jacket. To eBay. To "charity". Fine. Dandy. Hey, super. Great. Sob... I would've USED that damned thing, you demon straight from HELL!!! I go to DISCOTHEQUES!!! Well, I'm not bitter or anything. This has been a Moment with User ID Indeed!
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Hard edged realism? Are we talking about the hard-edged realism of a gang of bowler wearing, jockstrap sporting thugs raping a woman with a giant plaster penis? Or perhaps the hard edged realism of a hick pilot riding an A-bomb? Oh, wait. You must mean the hard edged realism of a giant ancient monolith buried on the moon. Which hard edged realism do you speak of that Stanley Kubrick would object to?
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... All these grades, all these ratings? Beyond the obvious question (they are there as a verdict of quality) What good do they do? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I hear Three stars, C+, thumbs up, down, Great, Good, Mediocre, 35 million the first weekend, on and on and on... These aren't useful descriptions. These don't tell us how a movie works the way it does, sometimes not even whether it works. These are not useful descriptions. They give us the barest possible notion of what's going on and no more -------------------------------------------------------------------- We have reached a point in our culture where imagination, ingenuity, and idealism have taken a backseat to convention, commerciallism and oversimplification, and we are suffering for it. We need complex enough and natural enough assessment of our movies so that the values we look for in the films are more towards their purpose, and less towards merely bringing people into theatres. -
I think he really nailed what the movie was about, what we create to satisfy our existence, how we fulfill our miserable little lives. And in the end its no more artificial than a little robot boy. Best movie of 2001 so far. Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor - Osment and Law, definately!
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Just saw it. I started cracking up 20 minutes after it ended - how Kubrick's theme(s) cia Steven's directing is screwing up everyone, especially AICN reviewers. This is not just a Pinocchio story.
MAJOR SPOILER: The last shot of the film shows David getting his oedipal wish. On fact Hurt spells it out in the first five minutes, with an idea that Asimov could not have even thought of. Go see it, great movie. Weak point: William's score, to soapy and used too much. -
Wow, I am amazed by the wide-range in posts from people saying this is the worst piece of garbage on the planet to those making it sound like the second coming. First, I am a huge SK fan and an admirer of SP. I have seen ever SK film that is available and enjoyed all of them (including EWS). Back to "A.I." which I saw Thursday at a screening, I was very pleased with it. Yes, the movie could have been great if it had been cut exactly at the bottom of the ocean, but I gave SP a chance and actually enjoyed the actual ending of the film. Acting wise, HJO and JO both gave near-perfect performances and deserve consideration for awards at the end of the year. The visuals were some of the best I have ever seen in a film. My only big complaint? I felt the score by Williams was so-so and didn't add much to the movie.
After, I went with a group of 15 people to a bar to discuss it. Some people felt it was okay but felt that it raised a lot of ethical questions worth debating. Even they were happy that they had spent $10 on seeing it despite some disappointment in the final product.
My advice is to give this film a shot. Go in with moderate expectations and watch it unfold.
--charles -
Someone mentioned the LOTR teaser is being shown before AI. At least there will be something that is certain to be worth watching, so i guess i'll go see it. Anyway, i hope AI is meant to be a fantasy because,as the review points out, there seem to be too many premises that the viewer has to really go out on a limb and accept. That sounds like a good point about the spinach and the lack of knowledge about humans eating. You mean he is programmed to love, but doesn't understand that humans have to eat? Just the statement "programmed to love" is a contradiction. If you have to program something to love, then it' isn't love, is it? Almost as stupid as the "emotion chip" they had for Data(what a boring character). Well, if this is meant to be science fiction, then this film sounds like it has serious flaws. If its fantasy, then this type of reaching is acceptable. I just hope it works. Well, at least i'll get to see the LOTR teaser again.
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Of course you can't stick memories in a clone out of thin air. Of course it's stupid that she could only live one day. Of course it's stupid that you could clone from just hair. The reason? It is a virtual mommy the robots made for little wooden boy. The boy isn't going to realize she's not real (or even care). Still, I think we've hit on the biggest question of the Summer. Who is more incompetent, the engineers who built Osmont or the pretty boy undercover FBI agent in the Fast and the Furious?
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I saw it this afternoon. From the reviews I've been reading here, I thought it was gonna blow, but it didn't! Don't let all these bad reviews keep you away. A.I. is gonna be a classic! Oh and as for those "fake" endings....what are you talking about?? I noticed no such thing. I LOVED the ending. I'm sure when Harry posts his review, he'll like it too.
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Nope. No LotR teaser {not in the theater I went to, at least}. In fact, they even took down that poster of Elijah Wood! There IS, however, a teaser for Harry Potter....I don't know if that interests you.
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If you find out that spielberg was murdered you can bet it was Stanley Kubrick risen from the grave, pissed off at the abominable film known as A.I. Don't get me wrong, I love spielberg but this is monstrous crap. It's easily one of the most atrocious films this year. There are so many problems with the story it's hard to know where to start. First off, there wasn't really a story and the story that was told didn't lead anywhere. Jude Law is good but there is no reason for him to be there. Don't even get me started on Einstein cartoon character that is complete drivel. And I swear to god the last half hour is the most heart wrenching piece of film because you realize that you've just wasted 2.5 hours of your life on garbage. And once you think it might be over. Think again sucker, it just gets worse. And when you think it can't get worse, oh it does. 2000 years later aliens arrive (with somewhat of a british accent) and unearth the frozen haley bot, who kicks ass by the way, but how many times must we see the same face frozen in horror? Basically i laughed through the last 45 min because spielberg drove his flaming wreck of a movie straight into the brick wall of absurdity. Avoid this movie like the plague. And to Kubrick... we're sorry A.I. sucked so bad. But steven will make it up with Minority Report. Hasta.
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If anyone had told me that John Singleton would make a better film this year than Spielberg, I would've laughed out loud, but it's true. Baby Boy is a great film. It's smart, funny and has a lot to say without a hint of preaching or patronizing. Tyrese and Ving Rhames both give what I consider to be Oscar-worthy performances, and Ving in particular has what will go down as one of the funniest fuckin' love scenes this year. I swear, you gotta see it to believe it. That and the scene where he makes breakfast (those who've already seen it know what I'm talking about!) Listen, if you don't believe me, go read Capone's review. I'm just trying to drum up some extra awareness for this flick, 'cause I'd hate to see it get lost in all the other, over-hyped mediocre nonsense.
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Jun 29, 2001 6:16:12 PM CDT
I'll take A.I. any day over Pearl Harbor, Tomb Raider, etc...
by obscure homage
An adequate Spielberg/Kubrick effort which succeeds in provoking thought but fails in other areas is considerably better than the onslaught of garbage that Hollywood has released this year. The only above average studio films that I've seen in 2001 have been Moulin Rouge and AI, the latter of which I was direly anticipating as a respite from the summer of crap. AI does not rank with any of the classic films that Kubrick or Spielberg made, but it's still a very intriguing work nonetheless. P.S. Eyes Wide Shut is one of the best films of the 90's.
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A.I.is the deepest, best piece of cinematic Science Fiction since 1968 and 2001; A Space Odyessy. The only people who won't like this masterpiece are those that don't get it, or worse, those that think they get it. It's got some flaws, but that's what makes it such a masterpiece.
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So far all I've heard is pretty visuals and a story that would impact adopted children.
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And I don't feel fine. Okay, first complaint/problem I have regarding A.I.: title. It's evident that has nothing to do with Artificial Intelligence. Now if Kubrick had made this film, the title would have been fitting for the simple reason it would have been science fiction, not the fairy tale Spielberg made. I enjoyed this film. I guess I might be in denial, but after two hours of thinking about it, I enjoyed it. The marketing of this film is a huge problem; it's not fucking science fiction. It's awful science fiction. Had Kubrick done it, it would have been science fiction. This is, however, Spielberg's film and it's fantasy; a fairy tale. I just now came to terms with that. As for my next complaint: narration. It was pointless. It was boring to Spielberg fans, and it was dreadful (it made me cringe) for Kubrick fans. Perhaps in time it won't seem as blatant. Another problem I had with it is the direction. For the most part, it was great. But the opening main scen: "let's build a robo boy who can feel," the conversation between the black woman and William Hurt. The needless cutting from both of their perspectives and leaving the sides of their heads in plain view is something you'd never see in a Kubrick film. As for the opening waves shot. I'm still contemplating the use of that and the narration. If I would have done it, I would have had a shot of some holographic art displaying the polar ice caps melting and water flooding the earth with William Hurt explaining it to his class and incorporating it in his speech. Have a voice-over basically with the shot of the art to, in some way, symbolize our virginal perspective of the earth in the future. The scoring, I loved. Why the fuck is anyone complaining about that, yet feel the narration was okay? But, again, had this been a science fiction film and not the fairy tale it turned out, the scoring would have been silly. But here's something that puzzles me: Dreamworks Pictures. Think about the last three years and the "big" films from each year. 1998 would be Saving Private Ryan; 1999 would be American Beauty; 2000 would be Gladiator. For Saving Private Ryan, it ripped off 1944's "The Sullivans." Of course the story's loose, but some of the filmmaking and scenes from SPR were obviously lifted from The Sullivans. American Beauty ripped of 1980's "Middle Age Crazy." Same senario with the aforementioned. Again, Gladiator lifted scenes (the training!!!!) from, ha, Spartacus. Yet, no one mentions this. Now for A.I., anyone remember Bicentennial Man? What the hell is going on with this studio? Am I the only one noticing this? But anyhow! I did like A.I., but I don't recommend it. The first three acts, the hair stood up on the back of my neck because it was a beautiful experience. But I can give Spielberg credit for it. Bottom line: this is not science fiction, this is a fairy tale. Expect nothing more, but don't expect anything less. End of rant.
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Jun 29, 2001 6:31:42 PM CDT
And you guys all just "didn't get" the Fast and the Furious
by domisinnerchild
It's a masterpiece blending culture, love, speed, um... like girls, dumb FBI agents, and girls. Nobody gets the symbolism of everybody in the movie having a roll of exactly $2000 in their pockets at all times.
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Those weren't aliens at the end of the movie!!!! If you can't recognize something simple like that then you have no attention span and probably didn't get the movie anyway... Next time listen and pay attention when you watch a movie.. Maybe they should have a minimum age requirement to post comments on here.
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Here's a few. (I haven't seen the movie, take note...)
If he is a "child" he is programmed with some childlike aspect, albeit, he is still a robot.
Occasion to NOT obey human commands when he thinks they aren't entirely nessicary.
Aka: He's eating spinach. He doesn't know it could harm him. Mother says no. He sees no reason to stop. Child-like instinct.
Doesn't know he's harming his brother... That can be explained by maybe the fact that he didn't know the water could harm the brother, and maybe he assumed he could easily save his brother if need be.
The non-understanding of the eating process: Child-like programming. He's never personally seen people eat, maybe he's amazed?
Now, if he was programed knowing algebraic forumla and geometry but not knowing that people eat, that could be a problem, but you didn't say that, so who knows.
In reality, if david was a grown man programmed in that way, he could be dangerous. As a child programmed to be a child for parents to care for, he is flawless (almost).
Ta-da. Da da da...
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Jun 29, 2001 7:17:09 PM CDT
Dr. Death just thinks he's smart because he read that the things
by domisinnerchild
So he can rip on the 90% of the population who will probably make that mistake.
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1) The Spinach fiasco - supposedly, engineers don't make these kinds of stupid mistakes. Yes, just like they don't make tires that explode or cars that explode or dirigibles made out of highly flammable materials. Engineers can't foresee everything, and david wasn't designed to try to eat.
2) The Asimov rules - David should have them. Uh, no. They would interfere with true human "love." They would make it impossible for David to accurately emulate human emotion. Whether or not all the robots in the movie were missing these rules is irrelevant; David, at the very least, *couldn't* have them.
3) The water not affecting him - okay, yeah, I'll give you that. The spinach thing is inconsistent. However, presumably, David knew that inhaling water is bad and swallowing spinach is good - therefore, he would have tried one and not the other, hence no leaking in the pool.
This is not to say that I thought the movie was great. I wanted the movie to end at the ferris wheel, and there were other problems - motivation problems, mainly. Does David want to be a real boy, or does he want to be a real boy so that his mother will love him? We know it's the latter because he says so at the beginning and at the end, but it appears that he loses sight of this goal in the middle. And the blue fairy thing with Dr. Know - the cryptic riddle response - was just unnecessary. Did they really think David wouldn't believe it if the answer were given to him in a straightforward fashion? And one other thing - Gigolo Joe bought into David's fairy tale. So David is not unique in that regard. -
But other than that the movie was great, It should have ended at the part everyone's saying it should have, but we thought those archeologist robots were aliens and that's what ruined the whole damn movie for my friends and me. And to think the only reason that ending was on there was to give the stupid masses a happy ending. People need something to think about everyonce in a while. My suggestion when the right ending comes get up and run out of the theater while holding your ears so you don't hear the bullshit narrator saying, "2000 years passed...." Damn you Steven Spielberg damn you to hell.
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No I think 90% of the population won't like AI bc they can't accept Haley Joel's character. Which is understandable...
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One thing "El Cosmico" forgot to take into account (when analyzing the specific plot points) is that this is NOT a story based on "Flat Facts." This is truly and most definitely a "Fairy Tale." This point alone should excuse all inconsistencies in the movie. (Especially when trying to figure out how David- after fleeing the Flesh Fair- gets Teddy back.)
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You haven't been paying attention if you thought Kubrick planned to shoot AI as hardcore SciFi flick. The Pinochio storyline and in particular the emphasis on the Blue Fairy were ideas that Kubrick pushed upon the scriptwriter. Don't believe me? Search the London Daily Telegraph for "AI" and you will read a story written by the scriptwriter.
Personally, I found it a very haunting film that had a subtlely disturbing tone thoughout the film. The more I think about it, the more I like it, much like most of the Kubrick films I have seen. -
HUGE AI SPOILERS
My take on the ending (as many seem to have totally missed the point)...
David wants to be a real boy as he is not "real" or so he thinks. He is not alive. But his "LOVE" is real and his emotion, just like human emotion, is a bind that ties him universally to life and is very real. The irony is after his journey to find his mother and long 2000 year wait to become real he awakes to a world in which humans are extinct and life is carried on in the form of robots (the "aliens" at the end of the movie are NOT aliens folks) making him "real" (as he is a robot) but the life of his mother and the humans which he loves are of course gone forever. The future robots see him for what he is, the special moment in which humans created a sentient being, very alive and with purpose and gave birth to their race which replaced the humans. For this reason he is very important to them and so they give him back his mother for the day in which we see him once more for what he is... a very real and loving boy. The overriding point of the film is that what is real is emotion, feeling... love and that the flesh or electronics don't decide life and worth. -
Did no one "get" the ending? All that pseudo-scientific stuff and maudlin "last day" actually paid off in the last scene: He's IN BED with mom, dad's gone, and he goes "for the first time, to where dreams come from." HE METAPHORICALLY FUCKED HIS MOTHER, re-orienting our relationship with the entire movie. Now the cloyingly sappy parts take on a whole new aspect...
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Substance...what substance?
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Jun 29, 2001 9:00:35 PM CDT
"And then, after 2000 years frozen in ice, he was rescued....by,
by alonzomoselyfbi
What a steaming turd of a film. Reminded me of the above referenced Simpsons Lord of the Flies episode. "And then, 2000 years later," the narrator says, and I'm thinking to myself, "yeah, 2000 years feels about right..." What a waste of 2.5 hours of my life.
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Jun 29, 2001 9:22:28 PM CDT
BEN KINGSLEY'S NARRATION AT THE END WAS INTENTIONAL BECAUSE IT W
by psyclops
Jesus, everybody seems to be missing that one.
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When I read this review I was downright angry. El Cosmico goes on a mindless rant about how he thinks an android (who is supposed to be as close to human as possible) should be programmed. This is a terrible review. It's like the whole reason he didn't like the movie (other than the end) is because it didn't follow Isaac Asmiov's take on the way robots should be made. What a silly review. And where exactly would David sitting at the bottom of the ocean leave us? I'm all for endings that sort of leave you hanging a bit, but for Pete's sake that would leave you hanging and then stomp on your fingers. What exactly would that mean? David's a looney vegitable that will never get what he wants? It's too ambiguous ... Kubrick (I know this isn't a Kubrick movie but you have to admit the influence is there)always had some kind of closure even if it was a little confusing. Anyway .. I would have written a lot more but in reading a lot of other talkbaker's reviews I see now that I'm not the only one that completely disagreed with this article. Thank God.
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This film is just missing a soul. Somehow it's been caught up in the space time continuum. However, at least that means it'll die after one day (at the box office). Spielberg must have phoned up George Lucas and said, "Hey, George. I've been thinking about your midachlorians from Episode One and I think I can top you." When word of mouth gets out on this one, it'll should tank worse than Pearl Harbor. Great performances by the cast, with very limited material, however.
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I thought the ending to Jurassic Park II was bad with that stupid T-Rex eats San Diego bullshit. But I stood by the man who directed DUEL, a truly great film.
I was pissed that everyone died after they saved that whiney ass, Private Ryan dick. But I remembered JAWS and remained a loyal fan.
Now I just want Steven to get on his knees, bow his head and let everyone on the face of the planet beat the living shit out of him with copies of 1941.
Then we can take the recently beaten shit and make a statue. A statue of shit. A big, steamy, brown and black sometimes green, corn encrusted, runny in places, "Hey I don't remember ever eating that!", statue of shit in the shape of ET.
You used to be the king, Steve-o. You used to sit on the throne with the stuff you made. Now you're still sitting on the throne with the stuff you make only this time the throne is made of porcelin.
F L U S H ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! -
yeah i know a lot of other people have already said this... but it just really bugs me... so i'm going to say it too... THERE ARE NO ALIENS IN A.I.!!!
thank you. -
Why is everyone so upset about this movie? It was great!!! I really feel sorry for all the critics out there who are too fixated on their own "keen" analytical senses that they miss out on getting immersed in a great film. Don't bitch because this movie doesn't exactly vindicate the dreck that is this summer's movie going season!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The movie was great. What is with this "I didn't like the mecha design bulls*it?" I guess when lord of the rings comes out the reviewer (I've already forgotten their name) is going to say ,"That's so f*cking fake, that could never happen in real life!!!" The point of the story is that it is a fairy tale told in a sci-fi setting!! As far as content this movie is head and shoulders above anything that has come out in awhile. Religion, Philosophy, Humanity, Science, it's all there. I love the modern day tie-ins too. As much as I found the "Flesh Fair" a little much I have to admit to loving the "WWF" crowd Speilberg used, it's so telling of where the human race is heading. And as far the "dogs" in the round-em-up scene are concerned. You know if the hillbillys of the world could drive one of those things and put something cheesy as hell on the front -THEY WOULD. Go and see this movie, it's wonderful.
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edward scissorhands * sci-fi + pitiful 'hollywood' ending = a.i.
the true movie a.i. was a great fable about an innocent experiencing the world, and deciding that he want -
I saw it tonight. In my opnion, A.I. is not only haunting, it's the best movie I've seen all year. I can't believe so many people here are more interested in nitpicking every little plot detail rather than just enjoying this creepy futuristic fairy tale. Nobody in my theater left early... on the contrary, I even heard people say they thought it was "wild" and "creepy" and "cool" after it was over. My brother said he would have been mad had the movie ended before the "2000 year later" finale... and I would aggree. Granted, I thought it was too quiet and moved too slow at times but not nearly as bad as I was lead to believe from some of the reviewers here.
Finally, I only heard "amphibicopter" said once in the whole movie, Moriarty! I was listening for it. What movie did you see?? -
Although I knew that opinions on this movie were going to be as black and white as those aliens in that episode of Star Trek TOS which I have never seen all the way through (dammit! What is UP with them? I accept that I'm doomed never to see it all the way through...) But back to AI. Despite it's flaws (and every movie has them), it worked. It really did. I, too, would have preferred it to end at the ferris wheel. It would have been beautiful and poignant, and would've left the audience with a totally different aspect of the movie in their little heads. However, it continued, and the ending didn't quite fly. But still, it wasn't a terrible ending. The space-time stuff (which, yeah, was garbage), was excusable because hell, they needed a way to make Mom stay alive only for a day. I sighed, and accepted it, and put it out of mind as simply the device that it was. At first, for a minute or two, I thought it was aliens that had rescued David, and I was really pissed. Then it clicked that they were advanced Mechas, and that was okay. It made sense. It was nice to see David get what he wanted, but all in all, I think it would have been more powerful to leave him in the ice. The entire message of the movie would have been changed. But all that aside, good lord what a beautiful movie. The effects were stunning and seamless, the acting was fantastic (Osment was great, if that kid survives puberty and reaches adulthood as an actor, he'll be a legend...let's all hope he sticks with the GOOD films, and never starts to churn out shit). Summation: AI is a movie with flaws. But it still works wonderfully, and it deserves your money, respect, and attention.
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Jun 29, 2001 11:10:06 PM CDT
Spielberg Got Credit But Really Didn't Write POLTERGEIST Or CLOS
by buzz maverik
He really doesn't write. Like Lucas, he's a great storyteller, incredibly imaginative and inventive, but he's not the guy who gets it on paper even though he's gone for credit. On CLOSE ENCOUNTERS he sort of bullied Paul Schrader and that drug addict guy--who died last year when he crashed his SUV into the California aquaduct--out of credit. I'm not sure who wrote POLTERGEIST. Spielberg made it his own, no doubt (hell he really directed the sumbitch; don't tell me Tobe Hooper did because Tobe had a nervous breakdown, sorta like the one Walter Murch had on RETURN TO OZ and George Lucas really directed that!)and certainly gave it its' sensibility. Probably a lot of hands, even Stephen King, did some work on POLTERGEIST.
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isn't that great of a movie. So the fact that Spielberg wrote it isn't a huge contribution to the pro-A.I. club. But whatever maybe your just pissed Spielberg isn't getting his dues ... in that case more power to ya.
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Jun 29, 2001 11:14:40 PM CDT
Don't listen to those who don't Like A.I. judge for yourself!!!
by rb65
I just saw A.I. & thought it was excellent. The cinematography was very good. It will be the best movie you see this summer, maybe all year. After reading some of the really negative messages here which say one thing and then after seeing the movie, coming to completely different conclusion. The ending wasn't bad like people said. That ending was better then the whole of Tomb Raider. All this ranting & raving about the ending or it was to long I think is just an excuse. I think the real reason some people didn't like the movie is because you have to reflect & ponder on what you seen on the screen as you leave the theater. It keeps you thinking for a while, And hours later your still thinking about some of the scenes in the movie.
Most Americans just don't like to think too much about a movie they see. That's why most American movies are cookie cutter Hollywood BS. So If you don't want to expand your intellect go see Tomb Raider. If you do see A.I., contemplate something worth reading before you post a message because so far most of the criticisms are without merit. JUST GO SEE IT AND DON'T LISTEN TO WHAT YOU HEAR OR READ!!!
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Jun 29, 2001 11:20:47 PM CDT
My Brother, Crash Maverik, Calls THE 6TH SENSE "I SEE DEAD PEOPL
by buzz maverik
As in, "Hey, Buzz, you wanna go see the Spielberg movie starring the kid from I SEE DEAD PEOPLE." And I say, "Maybe later. Today, I'm gonna see the new Travolta flick starring the guy from WOLVERINE and Halle Berry's hooters."
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I think the only good thing most movie reviewers of that era had to say was "great photography." Otherwise it took 2001 a long time to warm the cockles of the professional reviewers' collective hearts. Thirty something years later we have AI, which the critics absolutely adore but is offputting to a lot of scifi fans. And El Cosmico, for all his nitpicking, is nothing short of a fullfledged scifi fan. It's all a little unsettling and makes me wonder about the future of AI. Seems to me if you're going to make a scifi fairy tale why straddle the fence and make it dark except in the places where you feel it needs to tug at the audience's heart strings? Either go the (Ralph Bakshi's)WIZARDS route and turn the dimmer all the way down, or make it a sentimental romp, a la ET (nada wrong with that). Even Close Encounters was a relatively bright if not esoteric movie (again no issues here with CE3K). Maybe Spielberg chickened out and did not trust his abilities to make a full-on Kubrick film, much the same way Kubrick felt he would not be able to add that Spielberg touch to AI had he made it. It's too bad they couldn't have made a genetic twin of Obi Wan Kubrick using a lock of his hair so Spielberg could consult with him for 24 hours (and a not a moment longer!). Because it feels like Spielberg instead channeled his evil mentor from the Light Side, Darth Disney, to come up with that tacked-on ending. Not to get too redundant but as others have said on other AI message boards: don't expect a Spielberg movie, don't expect a Kubrick movie, don't expect a Kuberg-Spielbrick movie. Just expect a movie.
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First off...Psyclops...right on. Second, I've seen this movie twice now and let me tell you, it is much different the second time around. My initial impression of the movie was that it met and/or surpassed all expectations I had of it. When the credits rolled I saw the film as a straight forward "what is it that makes us human" fairy tale. But upon the second time watching it I picked up on some other things. -----May include some spoilers----- 1) the Freudian sub-text is there, in fact when David opens the bathroom door on Monica she is reading a book about women and freud. 2) Perhaps it is not the love but the hate and suffering that make us, and David in turn, human. His emotions and self awareness come to fruitition when he hates the other David and knocks his head off. 3) It is a fairy tale and does not live by the rules of sci-fi and/or reality. For example, how does one fly? Machine? Anti-gravity? Nope...happy thoughts. Now when in the context of a fairy tale, no one argued that happy thoughts and pixie dust is "poorly engineered and full of plot holes." It's taken in context, step back from your microscope and look at entire painting. 4) Haley Joel is way too good of an actor, watching his face when he first imprints onto Monica is beautiful; and I felt his pain when the blue fairy shattered. Well that's it for this long, and hopefully helpful, opinion. I hope all of you go see this if nothing more than to have an opinion based on something more than what you've heard here. Thank and goodnight.
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just got back from seeing the movie and my friend and I counted 50 out of a packed theatre of 100 leaving before this abortion was over. I never seen such a great film hang itself in the last twenty minutes.
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I don't know about all these negative comments...it's like people can't relate to David's struggle..his dream. Have you forgotten how to dream? Don't you remember how it was to want something so much, you'd do anything for it? Is that just a fleeting memory now?
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Jun 30, 2001 2:26:41 AM CDT
His love is real, but he is not, and neither is anything else in
by superninja
The finale is a big lie. They extract his memories, so they know what David learned about his own nature and what he was after. They create a "vision" of the Blue Fairy, hoping to satisfy him, but he demands his mother be brought back. The head AI tries to talk him out of it, but he still persists. They satisfied David's prime directive. What happens to a programmed machine when it has no directive anymore? Kaput. This falls in line with the discussion at the beginning of the film when the Professor is asked how do you make a human love an AI? Apparently, not only was a difficult moral question, but he didn't think to give David directives beyond that. I think the advanced AIs were lying to him anyway, because it seems beyond the realm of suspension of belief to think that woman loved him. They euthanised him.
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Jun 30, 2001 2:31:16 AM CDT
Explanation for cloning with memories in A.I. (if anyone still c
by grendel824
For anyone who is still having trouble with the idea that a human might be "cloned" by these beings with memories intact, all the explanation you need is in the movie.
They make a point to say they had discovered that any particle of matter is imprinted with a "memory" of where and how it was throughout its existence. Someone "re-created" with that technique would not be a "clone" as we understand that term today, but an exact copy of that being, memories and all, of whenever they chose to bring them back from.
The kicker is that this is actually theory that has been thrown around in recent years --it is widely believed that every piece of matter in the universe may somehow contain a "map" of the entire universe, and "knows" how everything is/was arranged at any given time. This is one of the leading theories used to explain why, when photons are forcibly split, they continue to behave as though they were still a single particle.
'nuff said -
Jun 30, 2001 2:47:58 AM CDT
All the DNA stuff aside, where is it suggested that she loves Da
by superninja
All I saw was a woman filled with grief, who acted rashly and then later regretted it. She felt SO guilty, in fact, that she left him in the woods and told him not to go "thataway". It's why the whole final scene is unbelievable to me if it was simply made for sentiment.
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If the film were honest, when David's mother woke up on the bed, she would have reacted like the Bride of Frankenstein did when she saw the Monster. - And what were we supposed to make of the explanation that David wasn't supposed to tell her anything that had happened, because it might frighten her. Why wasn't she frightened by the fact that she didn't see another living human being all day long. David didn't achieve his quest, except through Spielberg's cheating. Some may argue that was the point - that it was a brty dark ending - but if a dark ending was intended, someone should have informed John Williams.
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I suspect that either A)The evolved robots simply recreated Monica based on what was imprinted in David (a loving, unquestioning mother) just to make him happy, or B)That they actually DID recreate Monica, but they threw in a little engineering to make David happy. I may be reaching, but I actually had to think about that one, and I haven't left a movie theater thinking about the one I just saw for a year. "A.I." is the best movie of said year. Thank you, Spielberg. This has been a Moment with User ID Indeed!
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The Pinnochio parallels are drawn in far too literal a manner. We're practically beaten over the head by them. Also, I think it's flawed to compare Pinnochio's and David's journeys so closely. Pinnochio took place in a fairy tale world where we can fully believe that a wooden puppet can become a real boy. A.I. takes place in a completely plausible future, which adheres to the laws of reality as we know them. We know David can never be a real boy and that his whole journey is pointless. That's why once the movie leaves the family it goes downhill, beacuse David's wish to be accepted by his family was an attainable goal and one the viewer can empathize with. The last 20 minutes have also been universally criticized, and they really do suck. This is where Spielberg's mind numbingly literal interpretation of Stanley's story is most apparrent. All that explaining and contriving completely drains the ending of any mystery and emotion. We didn't need to be spoonfed these moments Steve. Look at Stanley's end for 2001. He just presents things and let's you as the viewer figure out what it all means. Anyway, I guess it's pointless to analyze the end because I think Spielberg made a wrong move the moment he seperated David from the family dynamic.
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I find it interesting that everybody is upset that "Spielberg does the same shit over and over again", and yet many constantly talk about the Kubrick style and what he would have done with it and what his films are always like. Doesn't this indicate that KUBRICK did the same shit over and over again? Now don't jump on me, I like them both as directors. I also like Jimmy Stewart, but I consider him more of a personality than an actor because HE did the same thing over and over again. Perhaps we have the same phenomena with directors.
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Speaking of Pinnochio, do people know that in the original book, Pinnochio KILLS the cricket? As I recall, he squashes him against the wall like a cockroach. Then the cricket comes back as a ghost to give the puppet lessons in morality. He's a rather heavy handed Christ symbol.
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Hello... IT'S A FANTASY!!! I love how the "huge" problems with this film are: a) the robot had no cover in the back of his throat and b) the robot/alien type things at the end "we so stupid" You probably "love" 2001 because you're SUPPOSED to. I bet LOTS OF MONEY that if 2001 came out today, you'd hate it too. AI was an excellent film, one that challenged audiences today in a way that others never have - at least the audiences who saw AI thinking ET or Jurassic Park. For many, this was their first venture into a "deep" film (i.e. not The Mummy!) and when you wanted the film to end underwater, that;s so fucking Cliche'. To end the film at an unexplained ending just SUCKS. You "film buffs" are so stupid. You cant just sit back and watch a move without being like "What? Retracing memories from the air? DUMB!" - it's a fantasy, not real. Get over it.
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If they were Earth Mecha's they would have known about their past, these guys didn't seem too. Even if the were Mecha's, I feel they were not from Earth.
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Eyes Wide Shut, while I agree it's Kubrick's weakest film, is still a good film. If Kubrick had lived longer he would have continued tinkering with it (he was always editing until the last possible moment) and the film would have been better (I am sure the pool table scene would have been cut... that alone would have been a vast improvement. Now about this AI movie, I can't imagine Kubrick handling it in a similar fashion, even if he wanted to imitate Spielberg. I think, except for the EWS bashing, this El Cosmico chap is pretty right on about what doesn't work with this film. (SPOILER ALERT) I think that it is possible to interpret that the robot beings at the end lied to David in order to make him believe that the Monica at the end was somehow really her, but was, in fact, a robot just like him created based on his memories. They even cleverly tied in the lock of hair bit from his memories. Was this Spielberg's intention? Probably not. This interpretation actually makes sense, when so much of the movie, as El Cosmico broke down, did not. It's hard for me to accept that interpretation... it's not a matter of whether or not Spielberg intended it... it's just that the end has too much drippy sentimentality and the film as a whole is so flawed that a straight interpretation of the ending fits better. And what a terrible ending the straight interpretation is... but I don't know, if I force myself to interpret the ending the good way then the film overall is pretty good, major flaws not withstanding. Jude Law was great and Teddy was actually a pretty good character too... except for the damn last shot... ugh. If Kubrick wanted Spielberg to direct it, I think he wanted the Spielberg who directed E.T. That Spielberg is gone. Now his sentimentality, which worked so well in Close Encounters and E.T., is just cheap. And it comes out at the worst times in his movies... the ends of Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, for other examples.
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While mecha may have better memory than we do, we are still talking about 2000 years here. A lot can happen in that time and a lot can be lost. It seems to me that the mecha lost their past memory over the millenniums just like we would. Thus they archeology premise of them digging up New York to find out as much as they can about their long lost "creators". This was made pretty clear when the head A.I. was sitting and talking with David.
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at least this film is provoking alot of, mostly intelligent, discussion. How many of you are still debating "The Animal" or "Tomb Raider"? Yeah, didn't think so. While the movie is flawed, (too long IMO), it also has many reasons to recommend it. ie: an intelligent story, some great performances, stunning visuals and it's thought provoking. How many films this summer have given you that? You know how you could tell that this was going to be one sci-fi movie/fairy tale that was going to try to rise above the rest? No McDonald's Happy Meal tie-in, no "David" or "Gigolo Joe" action figures and no "Teddy" plush toys. Those of you who have dismissed it as "It sucks!" are not really giving it it's just due and those of you who haven't seen it yet should give it a shot. If you're a true film fan, (if you come to AICN, I'll asume you are) you owe it to yourself to see it and make up your own mind. 'Nuff said.
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As I read people's thoughts on this film, I notice the ones who liked it are more intelligent. I'll refuse to say this film is a failure; because it isn't! It's a beautiful fairy tale that incorporates all sorts of different fables and stories. The two biggest ones: Pinocchio and The Wizard of Oz. The ending is ambiguous, but rightly so. It does make you want to see the film again. I think the 2000 year jump was, in essence, Oz. From Kansas: The future (for us), to Oz: the far-off future. I think the story was awful science fiction, but it never struck me as being science fiction. It's a beautiful story. The filmmaking was the only problem I had with it. It's certainly very good, but has flaws. But it's understandable. At least Spielberg is trying. It's HIS film. It's his art. As for the forced sentiment, why is this a bad thing? All good films should force sentiment if they're the product of a great filmmaking mind. Some films are great, but they're certainly not the product of a great mind. This is Spielberg's film, and this is the way he feels. He's communicating with is. Kubrick felt indifferent towards humanity, but certainly accepted filmmakers who feel there is hope as evident in his relationship with Spielberg. What I think only should be expected is the filmmaking, not the story. Kubrick passed it off to Spielberg feeling it'd be more fitting for him to pursue. Kubrick would have loved the story - but might have found some flaw in the filmmaking. But I'm positive he would have loved this film. At least I hope so.
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OK, now that I have your attention. All of you fanboys that see yourself some sort of armchair scientist as well as you EL Cosmico, don't have a clue about science and any rant merely reveals your ignorance. I am a scientist. I have a Ph.D. First let me concede that it is a glaring design flaw to have the circuitry in a position to be destroyed be injesting food. However, to try and apply Asamov's laws to these robots is a major error. First....AI robots do not exist and any potential design thereof would never be bound to rules created by Asamov. Why should AI obey every comand? Especially in David's case as he was designed to be as human as possible. Doesn't a child disobey his/her parents from time to time? or at least appear reluctant to obey? Is is somehow impossible to assume that a robot designed to emulate humans would act differently? And actually to an extent David does as he is conflicted by every challenge Martin makes. It is only in trying to be like Martin that he responds like a human. Notice Martin didn't obey his parents either. Secondly, yes at present DNA can not be extracted nor detected in hair without the roots. However, 60 yrs ago we didn't know what DNA was. Genetic material was thought to be proteins. 10 years ago cloning a goat was the realm of science fiction, not fact. Who are you to say that 2000yrs from now technology would not have advanced enough to allow the detection of DNA in hair and the subsequent cloning of a human from that DNA. And let me get this straight...you can believe robots can exist with human qualities, people travel through time, aliens visit our planet, but memories imprinted on DNA ....impossible. Just how then do we remember? Wrong!! Nobody knows where our memories are stored or how they are maintained and as all protiens in our body are encoded by DNA maybe our chemical make-up that is affected by our perception of our environment is able to alter slightly our genetic make-up such that we have a memory of that event and all cells made subsequent to that event maintain that awareness. Have you completely forgoten suspension of disbelief? It seems to me that you just don't know what to make of the film and rather than say so look for what appear to flaws in science fiction based on science fact so you can appear knowlegable and appear to have something worthwhile to say. All of you fanboys are pathetic drones that jump on the bandwagon of whatever sad opinions are fashionable at the time. How many of you really think Bruse Campbell is the shit and how many just think that because AICN thinks so. As for me, I thought this film had a few flaws...I too would have stopped the film early, but as one person pointed out to do so would have missed the point of David being the essence of humans...love. Further, as stated before noone on the chat has the faintest clue what Kubrick envisioned and what was his or Spielberg's. You're just showing your ignorance in a vain attempt to impress people. Pathetic. And lastly unless you're a scientist don't presume to know anything about it because it is clear you don't. Reading science fiction does not make you any more knowledgeable....some of the worst mistakes about science reality come from that genre. But then again it is supposed to be fiction. I'd like to see the same critical eye for "science" applied to LOTR in Dec. As it is a fantasy film involving elves, trolls, hobbits, and magic, it most assuredly will not pass.
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Good grief! You people are so dang hard to please!!! I mean, you people settle for nothing! You write these reviews that ruin the movie for everybody and then act surprised when people go and see the movie, and low and behold, it isn't all that fun after all. I wonder what people would think of this film if they had read ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT IN ADVANCE!!!!! THAT'S WHAT I DID!!! Instead of spending all my time on my butt in front of my computer all day trying to find out how a movie is going to end before I even see it (which seems to be what you people do all day) I just went to see this film with the basic understanding that it was a movie in the future about a robot who wanted to be real. THAT'S ALL I NEEDED TO KNOW. Period. You people are SO STINKIN' NEGATIVE ABOUT EVERY SINGLE THING. I honestly could care less if "A.I." didn't follow the "Three Rules Of Science Fiction" or whatever. I think THAT IN ITSELF IS B.S. quite frankly. SOME PEOPLE just like to enjoy movies for their story. Not their technicalities. Have fun on your computers.
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Well, I went in expecting an entertaining trainwreck and what I got instead was a ceaselessly fascinating film. There are very few movies I want to see again that very instant and this is one of those movies.
One part that really sticks with me is the ending. It is pretty obvious that the advanced mechas as much as they want David to be happy, he never will due to his faulty programming so they give him what he wants and humanely euthenizes him. What else can the final words "and for the first time, David went to where dreams come from" mean except that David was shut down? There was no way to re-program him since the imprinting was hard-wired into him and couldn't be reversed. The result of all this was on the surface, a Spielberg Shmaltz ending while underneath was a heart breaking tragic one. Also about bringing back the mother for a day and losing her when she goes to sleep? I got it right away.
All the mechas could do was bring back her concious memories but couldn't reconstruct her subconcious thus when she went to sleep, she was brain-dead. It is also noteworthy that David sleeps for the first time here and we're told (I believe) that he was content to sleep there forever. I definitely need to see this movie again.
One more thing.... Let's at least give Spielberg credit for making a movie and not a "ride" or "special effects piece of crap". We always bitch about movies not giving a damn about story, characters, plot, and other things and here is a movie that has all that in spades. Plus when was the last time a movie resonated like this? No matter what you think of the movie, you have to give Steven Spielberg props for at least trying to give us a rich movie-going experience. This movie is easily in my top 3 movies of the year. -
What was Stanley Kubrick's contribution to the movie?
Kubrick is credited only for the concept of the film, but his presence was strongly felt on the set. Besides honoring Kubrick's privacy policy by keeping the script under wraps, Spielberg also remained true to the master's original story outline. ''The teddy bear, the ending, all of it's in Stanley's script,'' says executive producer Jan Harlan. ''He would be so elated, because the story was so close to his outline. But it still had Steven's handwriting over every frame, which was wonderful. If Stanley had shot it, we would still be shooting it, and we'd be fighting with the MPAA for an R rating. He wanted to go all the way with Gigolo Joe (Law) -- he got totally carried away with it. Steven took it down 75 notches.''
http://www.movieheadlines.net/ai/default.php3?postid=6548
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Think about it --- to these extremely sophisticated robots, David was a child... the beginning of their "race". They could not create the memories of David's mother so they used David's memories instead. That's why they explained to David that she would basically only have memories of him and told him not to speak of others she loved under the pretense that this would upset her.
The problem with their plan was that David would soon figure this out, so their solution was to tell him she could only live for a day. Why else would a day have such "cosmic significance"? The answer is that it doesn't --- it's just the amount of time the robots thought that David could enjoy his dream come true without realizing that it was only a dream that was entirely manufactured by these futuristic robots.
The movie's major theme was whether a human could really care for a robot which truly loved them. Every character, including David's mother ultimately showed that they could not. The ending showed that these robots did really care for David right from the start because he is one of "their kind" which simply points out that it is a sad reality that it is generally easier to love your own kind than another not matter how great the illusion.
Considering all this, I found the ending of the movie to be brilliant and can't believe that anyone would have wanted the movie to end with David's haunting chant while trapped under the Ferris wheel. If you really want that to be the ending, I dare you to never watch what comes after that scene when you buy the video or DVD --- I'd bet money that you couldn't do it and even more money that you'd at least find some aspect of the ending enchanting. -
Jun 30, 2001 1:22:45 PM CDT
Look, if they were robots they were robots but that makes their
by hupplescat
They wanted to know more about humanity. About the art and poetry, which is damn refreshing considering most science fiction depicts people from Earth as the lowest form of intelligence in the universe. Sure, ALIEN robots fine, Earth robots--no way. All they had to do was add a single line "In the two thousand years since you've been away we've forgotten." Simple. But they didn't say that making it pretty clear that they didn't evolve from David. And wouldn't they have been frozen like everything else? Ship lands on Earth, "Hey what the fuck is this cold shit? Let's see what's underneath." And before you all go apeshit, they learned English from the stuff they found. What the fuck ever.
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I liked the teddy bear. I liked the car Monica drove. I liked the way Sheila's head (the test subject robot at the beginning) opened up. And that's about it. If Spielberg did CITIZEN KANE, his narration would have begun, "Little did young Charles Foster Kane realize that the name of his sled, 'Rosebud,' would be his dying words." If Spielberg directed "Psycho," he would have called it, "The Boy Who Dressed up Like His Dead Mother To Kill People." Spielberg can't make movies anymore. All he knows how to do nowadays is show big panoramas and bland, mouth-breather reaction shots of his principals. He's such a poor storyteller, he can't trust images to convey the narrative strategy. I wanted to like this film, but I couldn't. It's like watching Gene Siskel in his last days, giving thumbs-ups to movies like "Babe 2." Sickening and sad.
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All I did was state my interpretation of the movie --- that it part of what enjoying movies is all about. If you get offended by someone's interpretation without merit and total hostility then I'd question your motives and your pyschological stability. As for the robots coming from another planet, Jude Law's character made a forboding statement that was a pretty clear indication that robots would be around long after humans were gone. And, robots with technology as sophisticated as the ones at the end of the movie could clearly survive during an ice age. In fact, they didn't even seem to have any negative reaction to the ice around them.
And, if you don't like my opinion --- fine, but at least explain why without a hostile and antagonistic attitude.
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All I did was state my interpretation of the movie --- that it part of what enjoying movies is all about. If you get offended by someone's interpretation without merit and total hostility then I'd question your motives and your pyschological stability. As for the robots coming from another planet, Jude Law's character made a forboding statement that was a pretty clear indication that robots would be around long after humans were gone. And, robots with technology as sophisticated as the ones at the end of the movie could clearly survive during an ice age. In fact, they didn't even seem to have any negative reaction to the ice around them.
And, if you don't like my opinion --- fine, but at least explain why without a hostile and antagonistic attitude.
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I get paid to think and thinking is one of the fun aspects of movie watching. I make about 140K a year for thinking, but jerks like you want to have the illusion you are intelligent while the facts show otherwise.
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Serves me right for posting on a board where rudeness is the norm and an IQ is just two letters in the alphabet. I'll let the two responses to my post speak for themselves --- obviously two guys who serve fast food for a living and think super-sizing their meal requires super-intelligence.
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I was forever skeptical of A.I, especially since the negative reviews started pouring in, but in actually seeing the film, I was pleasantly surprised. The only things I didn't like were the things that took me out of the movie, namely the cameos. The entire main stage Flesh Fair sequence was done wrong, and really should have been more disturbing. I think the only moments Kubrick was spinning in his grave over were the Chris Rock and Robin Williams cameos. And was that Geoffrey Rush doing the half-faced mecha searching the scrap for a replacement eye? It sure looked like him. In watching A.I, was very reminded of Kubrick - the pace, the angles, the production design - it was Kubrickian. I felt that the sentimental value was all Spielberg's, and I think he tries to make the audience sympathize with the characters, especially David, too much as Kubrick would have told the story in a more objective manner. Another complaint is that the "disturbing" moments like the aforementioned Flesh Fair, when David kills his other self, and when he stumbles across the packaging plant full of Davids and Darlenes, should have been more disturbing. A.I was an uneven film that fell prey to the PG-13 rating. I didn't care for Osment's acting in The Sixth Sense but was impressed by him here. Jude Law had one very good monologue that we see some of in the TV spot - "in the end, all that will be left, is us" and his final moment in the film was for me one of the better moments. The problem with A.I was the Spielberg-induced warmth. The essence of the story is cold, and the audience knows that, but at time's it's presented very cuddly, even at it's darkest. I didn't have much of a problem with the ending until the very last moment. Someone on the talkback pointed out how Oedipal the ending was and that got my mind moving in different directions. I dug the Teddy character and wished he had more lines and more to do. I liked it when the kids were competing trying to get him to come to them and then he ran to the mother. I fell into Spielberg's cute trap on some of the Teddy moments, but found them kind of inspired nonetheless. I'm still working the film over in my head, and since the negative reviews had somewhat dimmed my expectations, I found it enjoyable. Yet, I'm hungry for more. I was afraid that in very non-Kubrick manner Spielberg would tip his hand a little too much but he left some questions unanswered. A lot of folks on the talkback are shitting on Spielberg for A.I, and while I feel that if Kubrick had shot it it would be a really masterful work, I think we should all congratulate Spielberg for his first film with subtext, and doing a solid for Kubrick's project. People have compared this to Edward Scissorhands, which I always thought was more Frankenstein than Pinnochio. Watching this, I never really thought of it as a science-fiction film, it always struck me as a fantasy (or fairy tale) with a sci-fi backdrop. More should have been conveyed on the nature of mechas, and the nature of society to give the world a little more characterization, but if the film was told through David's eyes than the immediacy of what we see is definitely child-like. He does something and then moves on. He was on a quest for his maker, just like Gigalo Joe says, "the people who made us are always looking for whoever made them." As for the ending - aliens, robots, alien robots? Who cares? It came out of left field and they had the power to give David what he wanted, but in the end, it was just David swimming in artificialty, where he could be most at home.
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Jun 30, 2001 2:53:25 PM CDT
I will admit I am curious to see it again, given what the ending
by superninja
I can't really call this film a fairy tale at all. It mimicked Pinnochio, but what David was persuing, to me, was never truly achieved, except in his own mind. Really, that's the part that mostly reminds me of Kubrick more than anything else in the film. But the ending is totally bleak (even by Kubrick standards). David is "dead" the humans are gone, and the AI are all that's left, still missing the human equation. When David died, humanity was lost. I thought it was kind of horrorific when they start going on about how "You are special David, unique" when that's probably the last damn thing David wanted to hear. It knocked home his artificiality, which is what he was trying to escape. How many times was that repeated to him throughout the film? Was that even Teddy that gave him the lock of hair in the end? We never see Teddy "awake" when David is revived. David comes alive and then is "home". A very unsettling movie. And I'm kind of dissapointed I'm not going to be able to get my very own Giggolo Joe action figure ;)
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...there was that passage of the book that was narrated by Robin Williams at Dr. Know's which I thought was well put together sending David, Teddy and Gigolo Joe towards their quest which I though was a nice touch. Some questions though: the outcast robots in the woods. There were so many of them, why didn't they protect each other better? How did they get there? The one robot commenting that he was 75 years old, "Time's: Man Of the Year", wouldn't he be considered an antique and collectible? David's rage against himself destroying the other robot was against his nature. What was the "Darlene" version of the child robot like and don't tell me like that one in the "Sixth Day." That was creepy enough! Great performances out of Jude Law and Haley Joel Osmet, whom without a doubt will go on to do great things with their talents. The abandonment of David by the betrayal of his father and Martin, then finally his mother was intense. My guess is that the "alien" robots were earth robots and that technology had advanced to a point where machines started recreating each other. "Terminator" comes to mind. David was the closest thing to a human and they wanted to learn from him being the last vestage from that era. I also got the impression after David's mother had died, he had died as well with the dream reference. It could have been shortened by 30 minutes. It was a good film. Enjoyable. Glad I saw it.
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Jun 30, 2001 5:23:25 PM CDT
A.I: They are gonna talk about this movie for a while... for be
by kolobos rexx
Wow. Lots of opinions here. My Frineds and family saw this Friday night. So, I'll say a few things. First off, I absolutely LOVED the settings, imagery, and FX. I haven't been so effortlessly drawn in to the world greated in a film since Terry Gilliam's brilliant "Brazil". The look and feel of every enviornment was so... seamless! It was incredible. I never found myself questioning the "reality" of anything I saw, it all looked so absolutely real. Compared to the blantant, trashy CGI employed by so many "big" films recently, This was really refreshing to watch! My only real complaint in that aspect was that Rogue City looked so cool, and we only saw it for like, ten minutes! That scene probably cost half the movie's budget... it's mindboggling. Anyway, The performances were also great, mostly. Jude Law was fabulous. Osmet was amazing. The parents sucked. Maybe because I hated their characters, but I thought they were horrible. Teddy was great! There were a fair number of plot contrivances and plot-holes, I won't bother listing them here. And yes, the "endings" were really trying to beat emotion out of the audience, something not only Spielburg but practically every "dramatic" filmmaker in Un-Holywood STRIVES for, in my opinion. "Let's not TRUST the audience to be able to have a natural emotional response, let's create it for them... Let's emotionally blackmail them into feeling a certain way." I HATE that crap. I can't blame Spielburg for doing what everyone else does... it's what sells to the stinking sheep-herd majority these days. The man's gotta make what most people "want" to see, or no one will go. Unfortuate, but true. So, yes, the film SHOULD have ended at the scene under the ferris wheel... but hey, Kubrick WASN"T directing it. And Spielburg did what Ol' Stan trusted him to do... so what can you say? It was a thought-provoking, intricate, well-crafted film, that just fell prey to the typical Un-Holywood standards in the end. My Wife was horribly traumatized by the film... she's STILL sad. Not for ANYONE under at least 16. This kind of film could really screw up some kids. Beyond that, I have to say, except for "From Hell", It's the best attempt at a GOOD film I've seen all year... and that's after 13 visits to the theatre in 6 months! So, see it... just to see it.
"I Am... I Was."-Gigalo Joe. -
Usually I end up kicking myself when I read advance reviews on this site, and end up having the entire movie spoiled before I see it.
In the case of A.I., however, it was a blessing in disguise.
I went into the movie with lowered expectations. Which A.I. still failed to meet.
A.I. is not a very good film. Aside from standout performances from the gifted Osment and always-excellent Jude Law, and a scene-stealing Teddy, the movie fails miserably.
Frances O'Connor does a terrible job as David's "mommy", although she has little enough to work with here.
First she is appalled when her husband brings David home, and understandably so. Then two minutes later she signs the contract, then after a game of hide-and-seek with David, she says the seven words for "imprinting" his love.
She goes from horror at the idea of a mecha child to acceptance to love in the span of 5-10 minutes of screen time, with no explanantion or rationalization of her change of heart.
I certainly never believed she loved him in any way.
And then after he screws up a couple of times, she ditches him in the woods? Huh? When a child makes a mistake, you teach them and explain what they did wrong, so they don't repeat that mistake in the future. You don't get rid of them.
It should be obvious to Monica and Henry that David was terrified when he latched onto Martin and fell into the pool with him.
And why did Martin tell David to cut off a lock of Monica's hair anyway? He could have told David to smash some dishes or something. What 10 year old kid comes up with something like cutting off a lock of hair?
Anyway, after she dumps David in the woods, the movie derails.
The actual separation scene is compelling, thanks to Osment's performance, but after that it's all downhill.
I agree with the poster above who said that since we know David can never be a real boy, the entire journey is pointless.
The movie becomes a fairy tale, but since it isn't taking place in a fairy tale world, it doesn't work.
Yes, David is programmed to think like a child, and he believes that he was abandoned because he is not a real boy, and that if he can become a real boy, Monica will love him and take him back.
A real person might try to get back home, or find another family to take him in, but David believes the non-exsistent Blue Fairy is the key to his problem, and so the quest begins.
The Flesh Fair is supposed to be the big set piece of the movie, but it falls flat.
Rouge City is interesting eye candy, but we feel as if we've been here before. It's the same neon sleaze/Vegas city of the future we get in every other SF film.
By this point I was looking at my watch, not a good sign. The movie failed to engage me either emotionally or intellectually.
Underwater New York was visually stunning, but it amounts to nothing. A few shots of other mecha children being built in the lab, David plunges into the ocean and a ferris wheel falls on him.
This after another interminable monologue by William Hurt.
I won't even comment on the final 20 minutes of the film except to say it is the most preposterous ending ever put on film.
People were walking out of the theatre at this point (I wish I had).
I'd say it ruined the film, except there wasn't much to ruin by this point.
Look, I don't know if people will look back on this movie 30 years form now and say it was a misunderstood classic. Frankly, I'll probably be dead by then, and if I'm not, I have no intention of watching the movie again to find out if I was wrong about it.
All I know is that by the time the credits rolled, I was bored, and had had enough of this movie.
I can forgive the movie for not being an in-depth exploration of the ethical ramifications of artifical intelligence. That was n't what I expected or wanted from this movie going in.
I wanted to be entertained, or I wanted to be intrigued and intellectually stimulated, or preferably both. I got 0 out of 3.
I didn't care about any of the characters in the movie except Teddy and David, and in David's case, once he was separated from the family, I stopped caring about his journey.
For those expecting this movie to be the savior of Summer 2001, look elsewhere.
It may not even be the best movie released thise weekend (I haven't seen Baby Boy yet).
Is it the best movie of this Summer? I wouldn't know. The only other movie I've seen this summer was The Mummy Returns, which I also cared very little for.
If I had to assign a letter grade to A.I. it would be a C-.
See it once, but I guarantee once will be enough for most of you.
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I can't beleive people have been bashing this like it's a pile of shit or something. Granted, the ending sucked. Fine. Whatever. It is a movie after all. There are so many things that I loved about AI though. Gigolo Joe whadaya know? Teddy. The manhattan part before he freezes. The vehicles (which, damnit, in the least just look cool). I really liked AI. There ARE parts that I don't like, but I didn't like how they had plywood office chairs in the Death Star either. The whole spinach/water thing IS dumb, but I really don't think that anybody cared. Oh, and I found neither Chris Rock or Robin Williams distracting. I probably wouldn't even have noticed them if there hadn't been such a hubub about it. Anyway, is Harry ever going to review this? Even if he just bashes it, he makes a strong case. These negative reviews are depressing though.
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Okay you guys who lashed out at El Cosmico for criticizing Hollywood "armchair engineers" when he was being one himself. I'm actually a real engineer, got a BS (make the obvious jokes, nitwits), almost got a Master's, already have a promise from the Navy that I can come BACK to work for them. So here's the deal. El Cosmico is right; it is really fucking stupid to design a robot that doesn't understand he isn't supposed to eat when it would obviously fuck his shit up. It's pretty damn obvious. And the 3 rules of Isaac Asimov...you smug little twits don't really comprehend how ingrained those are into the real world AI research culture. They're their, and in no way would a company release an android product that didn't follow those rules in some fashion. If your uninspired enough not to see why, then would you settle for it being a matter of liability on the manufacturer's part?
Anyway, these things I'm saying, they aren't obscure insights that only a dork who reads sci-fi night and day would come up with. It's just the common sense one would need to hold a job designing something that high tech. I see by your slavering resistance to that fact that you have a chip on your shoulder about something, most likely your teeny little mind. As a last stand against what I'm saying, you're probably thinking, "yeah, well in a movie you shouldn't waste time with the anal little details like that." I say, if you're going to try to make a movie about AI and the ethical dilemmas there in, and you aren't going to try to achieve some sort of fictional realism (verisimilitude), then what's the fucking point? And no, I didn't edit this, that explains the mistakes. I really have something else better to do. -
I have avoided spoilers and now, finally, I have the time and money to see AI. I shall return.
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First and foremost, a couple things stuck out in my mind about El Cosmico's review... This was not an Asimov story, nor does it hold true that all future designs of artificial intelligence will take on the traits of Asimov's "famed" Three Laws of Robotics. The reasoning could be complex as to why these laws were ignored, or it could be something as simple as... the people who really design AI aren't half as nerdy as the two idiots sitting behind me blabbering endlessly about how they need to upgrade their goddamn PDA's while the theatrical trailers ran. (As for the spinach thing... hey, the kid is a prototype... with arguably less bugs than the umpteenth version of Windows... which Bill Gates constantly hails as a boon to society). Unfortunately, most of the "first wave" of moviegoers who rushed out to see AI consisted of geeks who actually think technology has served us well, rather than needlessly complicated our lives. Therefore, it's not likely that they would understand the message of this film, nor appreciate the context in which the seemingly-Spielberg ending appears, and why. I could be wrong, but this is what I believe: The ending almost began as this sort of Terry Gilliam thing... and yet appeared to reverse course back into feel-good Spielbergness. However, Spielberg is not a complete moron... I'm not saying the man doesn't make mistakes... I don't LOVE this film, but I like it... I trust that a man as steeped in film lore and classical cinematographic storytelling as Spielberg would have the respect for Kubrick to have spent YEARS studying Kubrick's technique. I think that's why I accepted the film for what it was... we probably constrain the meaning of the ending too much to what we think spielberg would do, without thinking of it's actual meaning. In essence, the ending is actually about the fact that he does become a "real boy"... because, instead of simply breaking down and ceasing to function... he dies... and, most remarkably, by his own choice... which, for anyone who's ever read Asimov... is impossible for a machine to do. The distinguishing mark of living things is not only that they search for things that don't exist, such as God, or the Blue Fairy... but that all living things die. Thus, by his own action, and with a little help from future mechas... Haley Joel Robot finally got his wish, and decided he outlived his usefulness. (If you don't believe he died, think about the part where the narrator says he 'went to the place where dreams are," or something like that...)
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Before the guy who is an engineer with almost a Masters begins to shoot me down... most people who actually amke the decisions on what to make and why don't have any regard for ethics anyway... consider cigarettes and nuclear weaponry. It's pretty clear that, at the beginning of the film... William Hurt's character seems to have a God complex anyway... why would he care about ethics? Second... the laws of robtics... Ok, so let's assume that all AI engineers are as geeky as this one guy wants us to believe, and they all worship the laws of robotics... doesn't this serve the point that David is NOT just a robot... because he, in fact, doesn't follow these laws?
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I've hesitated to say Spielberg wasn't the right director for this project, but this is the failing of the film, to me. All the concepts were correct -- the mother is obsessed with her frozen child, and is disgusted by the idea of an artificial replacement, but in her grief, wants so desperately to reach out, she activates David. Then the real son comes back, but she feels a moral obligation to not have David destroyed, because he seems so real. But her family comes first. The Professor wants to replicate his dead son, the driving motive for him to advance AI, yet he is so obssessed that he fails to think of the ramifications in creating David, and the fact that he's playing God. He wants David to come back, but he sees him as a prototype, capable of getting him that-much-closer to replicating his dead son. David was an experiment to him, and not much else. These are the only three "real" characters in this film. Everyone else is a plot device or a throwaway character. Still, I think that Spielberg didn't have it in him to hone in on these really disturbing themes. Instead, he tries to make it a heroic journey for David, who never really finds what he's looking for. I really feel that Spielberg wasn't capable of tackling these themes. He doesn't like to hurt the audience, he wants to make them feel good, and you can't do that with this kind of film. I think when Kubrick said he liked his sentimentality, he thought that Spielberg would make the audience fall in love with David, much like E.T. Which I did, he was right about that. Unfortunately, I felt David was cheated by the time the film was done, and thus I felt cheated by the film altogether. It's not a fairy tale ending at all.
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Jun 30, 2001 9:55:13 PM CDT
AI - Not Spielberg's best work, but destined to change Sci-Fi in
by lobanhaki
Sometimes, it can be difficult to get a film when you're looking at every scene trying to decide whether This is Steven or Stanley at work. My suggestions to those who watch this film: Forget about doing that. This is a movie to be seen, not autopsied. Autopsies are for dead things, and this movie can't be dead because it had a beating heart of ideas and notions flowing through it. --------------------------------------------------------------------
I can't shower any original praise on Haley Joel Osment's performance, except to say that it's the exact kind of performance that should make critics fall over each other in praise of: It carries the impressions that have to be carried to make this stuff work.
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The plot quirks near the end are the major problems of the film. I agree that they are too extended in parts (mostly the latter ones) and that removal or drastic reconstruction of the narration would be in order. However, this film is good enough over all (and all over) to quite handily justify me saying this: Whatever you will think about it afterwards, This is the one film this summer you should not pass up seeing. -
...are that there is some new hybrid of a generation that will eat this crap up, eat this crap, eat this crap all and up and say mmmmn good. That society will somehow naturally evolve to wrap itself around this wretched piece of crap so that someday we will be known only as the audience that gave AI a lukewarm reception while it is hailed as a masterpiece 40 years from now. I fear to live in that world. Wretched script first of all - really terrible dialogue. Terrible direction. The worst - laughably bad. ALL THROUGHOUT. ALL OF IT. I read that the last half hour was the worst - and I thought to myself as it approached "It can get worse that this?" I tried at times to imagine myself as some Attention Deficit child of the future, liking the film, what would be my thoughts? AND STILL the expository lectures WERE WAY TOO MUCH! Oh Jesus Crap poor Bill Hurt was hurting. Even that CGI alienrobot was hurting. The worst lines. Why did we have to hear that crap? My worst fears confirmed.
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--Big Kubrick Fan--
Loved A.I. up to when David falls into water. I would have liked to see it end there...but I could have handled it ending freezing at the blue fairy.
The last 25 minutes just doesn't fit with the film. You don't span ahead 2000 years right at the end of a film like that (remember BICENTENIAL MAN). And the advanced machines were a mix between DePalma's dreadful Mission to Mars alien and Close Encounters. What was Spielberg thinking?
As much as I'd like to blame the final part on Spielberg, I found this article very interesting:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/071899kubrick-ai.html
Published in July, 1999, right after Kubrick's death...an excerpt:
"At the story's conclusion, the robots that have inherited the Earth use David's memories to reconstruct, in virtual form, the apartment where he had lived with his parents. Because his memories are subjective, the mother is much more vividly realized than the father, and his stepsister's room is not there at all; it is just a hole in the wall.
For Ms. Maitland, the film would end with David preparing a Bloody Mary for his mother, the juice a brighter red than in real life: "He hears her voice, and that's it. We don't see him turn to see her." Kubrick, however, wanted a coda in which the new race of robots, because of a technological limitation, cannot keep the the mother alive after reviving her. The movie would end with David in his mother's bedroom, watching her slowly disappear."
Interesting that David had a sister instead of brother. But I like that ending much better, that would have been a Kubrick ending. Then maybe I could have handled the whole jumping forward 2000 years.
But in bed w/ mom falling asleep...too storybookish, too feel good, not cold enough.
And of course they had to take out the whole mother being a alchy thing. That would have added dimension to her character. I love how he prepares a drink for her, he doesn't realize he's adding to her demize. -
Many of the film's themes and theses are premised on the fact that David is programmed to love. The kind of love that continually pursues the love of someone who abandons and rejects you, the kind that will not rest (2000 years!) until it believes that you really do love him back, is a failure. This love is often part of the cycle of abused children/abusers, not to mention stalkers (who pursue Spielberg among others!). I'm afraid for anyone who buys into this "idealized image" of love. A healthy loving human response in David's predicament is to seek out the love and support of those who return it mutually- teddy bear and jude law and aliens show him more healthy love than any human yet still he pursues that unrequited mother's love- a pursuit that keeps much of the moviegoing public in therapy.
I'd have liked to see a movie that ended tragic/bittersweet with David forever trapped in his infernal conflict under the ferris wheel with the one creature that loved him best (teddy bear)while we see William Hurt admitting his failure to replicate "love" and recover his lost child- in the end truly celebrating that fleeting essence that makes us each human and unique. Tragic- a film so close, and yet so far gone. -
Hokay, the fanboys are pretty much lined up against this one. AI. And I'm going to see it anyway, and enjoy it probably.
I'm not expecting a Kubrick spectacle. Ol' Stan was good at the sweeping epic -
Jul 01, 2001 12:06:47 AM CDT
read Kubrick's story treatment before presuming to know where he
by jasch70
http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index2.html
Spielberg did not invent all the story elements in the 3rd act! If you thought Kubrick would end the film on the end of second act, think again! Check the link and see what Kubrick's A.I. is like.
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Okay, Kubrick would have had the advanced robots bringing back the Mother, but they would have based in on David's thoughts, not on her DNA. That would explain why she didn't panic when she didn't see another human being all day long. And it would explain the change in her personality. And most importantly, Kubrick wouldn't have had the mother declare her love for David. She'd just fade out, letting him down once again. Speilberg ends the film by having her act completely out of character! It's complete deus ex machina - or in this cas machina ex machina. Or it's like ending a story by saying, "And then he woke up and it was all a dream."
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Jul 01, 2001 5:08:41 AM CDT
Thanks for any actaul prayers. I still don't know what to think
by huneybee
I don't know. Actually, that's an expressive sentence from someone that usually offers nothing more sarcasm here. I hesitate to truly offer my opinions about movies on this site as I have no wish to be insulted for offering up my experience as fodder for the usual personal insults which breed upon one another like mosquitoes in a puddle of stagnant water. As a human being, a sibling, and a mother, this movie has made me think. It definately has its flaws but I was home by 10pm, it is now right at 3am and I am still thinking about what I saw. I do know that I need to see it again. Maybe not soon, but again. Flawed but worth watching. __________A contemplative Bee
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Everyone who thinks Spielberg screwed with the ending needs to check out this link:
http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/071899kubrick-ai.html
It's an excellent article that outlines Kubrick's quest to make the film (written before it was announced Spielberg was picking it up), and it gives enough information to show that Spielberg was pretty much following Kubrick's ideas including the ending (which I admit was the worst part of the film - but apparently it's what Kubrick wanted too. -
I think the relationship between Monica and David is that of a careless person and their pet (I'll use dog for example). David was brought home as a "surprise" for Monica, who clearly didn't want him. The father acted on impluse and said they could take David back anytime they wanted to, as long as they didn't "imprint" on him. Monica jumps the gun and imprints David before she's ready. Then her "real dog" comes home and fights with David. Obviously, rather than working this out, she dumps the first animal; and rather than taking it back to be euthanized, she "sets it free."
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Jul 01, 2001 10:14:31 AM CDT
A.I. is a great all around film. The ending scene with David an
by spike lee
I will wait until the lines filled with white trash and gangster wannabes go down. Do you have to have at least one brush with the law before you see this movie?
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Jul 01, 2001 10:46:32 AM CDT
Cosmico, I think you're over doing the 'pissed off' critic thing
by tedsallis
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Ok, before all of you start pissing and moaning about how Kubrick is dead.... I KNOW. This isnt a Spieldberg film with "some" Kubrick influences either. It is 85% Kubrick and 15% Spielberg. Almost every aspect of this movie screams Kubrick. Don't go to the theaters thinking this is a Spielberg movie. If you do, you will be dissappointed. As for me, I'm not sure if I like it yet. Its all stewing up in my head right now. I'll get back to you when i figure it out.
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Jul 01, 2001 12:50:43 PM CDT
El Cos, I'm a fan of AICN, but even I think you should not try t
by llghtst0rmer
I mean, I sat through your endless, shameless fawning over Kevin Smith and the Crew Askew on the Jay & Silent Bob updates. That was merely a geek conceit from start to finish, and I could understand that. But actually trying to break down a film and go over its cinematic and narrative merits is apparently beyond your abilities. You don't have Moriarty's sense for being rational even at emotional heights, and you don't even have Harry's (usually) likeable, unabashed Geek passion. You come across more like a hanger-on, riding only on Harry's coattails. Please stop trying to write "reviews." It hurts my eyes. Lightstormer out.
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This is a Speilberg movie based on the treatment Kubrick made with the assistance of Ian Watson(who wrote 90% of thhe damn thing)and Sara Maitlin.
But Speilberg rewrote it anyways-I enjoyed AI until the 2000 years in the future cheesy ending.Kubrick would have thought a genius way to end it instead of giving us lame explainations, narrative and the worst mechaobot designs ever.
BTW, Anyone who thinks Eyes Wide Shut sucked doesnt have a bit of fucking taste in film.
Try using your brains in a movie theater for once. -
Anyone who pins the term "armchair" to a filmmaker in the context of a movie review on a website devoted to TV show and movie addicts has a seriously wacked point of view.
To suggest that Stanley Kubrick does not do enough research before involving himself in a film is ridiculous. The man did more in his lifetime than every person who posted a response to the this review combined. Plain and simple - he's a master and we're the peasants who wait in line for hours, ready to shell out money so we can watch his work.
I think maybe the real problem is the Armchair filmmakers, (primarily online movie reviewers), who view life from an ivory tower that they did absolutely nothing to earn a spot in, other than writing a few emails to some people who run a website in Texas or where ever this site is based out of.
Seriously. We should be thankful and respectful that we have filmmakers in our own country who dedicate their lives
to telling stories. These websites are so jaded and cynical, it kind of hurts to be a film admirer nowadays. It's as if the film world is in the hands of completely unappreciative nerds.
One last thing - I think pehaps the reason why you don't understand Eyes Wide Shut is because you don't understand women. -
Did anyone else think this movie was emotionally fucked up? David's love was NOT real. Basically he was a machine executing a program-- "Love Mommy"-- to the exclusion of all else. In my mind, real love is not simply obsessing blindly over a single object of affection. But the creators of the film seemed to have forgotten this, which is why the conclusion of the film (which, fortunately, most of y'all seem to recognize was a fairly appalling miscalculation) was the most blatant and disturbing Oedipal fantasy I've seen in a long time. Notice that David gets his wish: Mommy loves him, and only him, and David DISPLACES THE FATHER, TO THE POINT OF TAKING HIS PLACE IN THE MARITAL BED!! Jesus H. Christ in a chicken basket. David's "love" is a selfish, childish fantasy; he gets mommy all to himself, with no annoying relatives in the way to compete with him. Ultimately, this is why I was dissatified with the film. I feel as though the filmmakers (I'm past blaming either Steve or Stan; that point has been belabored way too many times) really dropped the ball in a number of ways. A.I. could have been a very touching film if it had dealt with a more complete view of the concept of love, which to me is not just fierce adoration of a single object, but also having empathy for others and an understanding that others can suffer. David had no concept of this; in fact, he's quite a selfish little machine. His constant litany is "Keep me safe, keep me safe." His explosion of violence against the other little mecha is motivated by a sudden realization that he may not be the only little mecha in town. Now this could have made for some interesting thematic whatnot: if David had realized, somehow, that other people matter too, not just himself, I coulda dug that. It would have been a genuinely touching meditation on the nature of love. But the "mega-happy" ending sends it all to hell. The ultimate message is that being loved is all that matters; there's no need to give of yourself to others, or be selfless, or think of anything but your own happiness. Even Gigolo Joe simply reiterates the solipsitic theme of the film: his last words are "I am." Sure, simply existing is great, but what about your fellow man, or mecha? Speaking of Gigolo Joe, he could have been an interesting counterpoint to David; he is a dispenser of sensuality without genuine love, and he has a drive for self-preservation, mostly. But actually, as cold as he is, he ends up a more compelling character than David, because doesn't he go out of his way to help David out of his watery predicament near the (first) ending of the film? Why? This question remains unexplored. Suppose David HAD learned to empathize with others-- he could have helped other mecha escape from the flesh fair, for example. Gigolo Joe could have been the cold, calculating counterexample to a genuinely loving David, continually asking David why he harbors these strange, potentially self-destructive feelings. Or, David could have developed a surrogate relationship with Gigolo Joe-- a surprising emotional attachment to a robot incapable of real love. Since the film already requires some substantial suspension of disbelief-- you fanboys have already discussed the bad science it contains-- I would have bought into a more spiritual or mystical aspect; that is, a robot learning to genuinely love despite his hardwired limitations. But no, this film was nothing more than a bouquet of missed opportunities.
Two good things-- no, three. Liked the underwater Manhattan. Loved Jude Law-- he gave a memorable performance, and I want a Gigolo Joe of my own. And the Harry Potter trailer was excellent. -
El Cosmico hit on a number of the problems I had with "AI". Some other issues I had include (Lots of spoilers below, sorry):
(1) What sort of numbskulls would use an emotionally distraught woman like Ms. O'Connor's character to test out the David prototype?
(2)Why would anyone create an irreversible programming code, thereby putting you either in a keep or destroy mode with David?
(The answer to (1) & (2) is cheap emotional manipulation of the audience)
(3) Why is Gigolo Jim on the run? Are no facilities available to playback his memories, thereby allowing the police to get a reconstruction of his entry to the hotel room?
(Because he has to be, so David and he can meet. But if this point was thought out at all, Gigolo Jim wouldn't be in this movie at all, unless it's because he's servicing Ms. O'Connor)
(4) If David is so unique, why doesn't anybody go searching for him after he submerges the police vehicle?
(I guess vehicle transponders are beyond the technology of the future...)
(5) Are our skinny buddies robots, aliens, alien robots, extras who wandered over from the "Mission to Mars" set?
(6)Call me narrow minded, but I just can't get behind a movie whose big emotional climax is the decision to resurrect a human for a single day just to make the lonely little toaster happy.
Ultimately I was profoundly disappointed with this movie. It all comes down to the screenplay.
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so, SO many things wrong with this garbage.I knew there was gonna be trouble when the opening narration starts in on the laziest, cheapest, most inexcusable piece of propaganda out there. I'm talking of course about global warming. It's a theory. A theory with a multitude of holes in it's logic. And I can't quite understand why it was used in the first place. It served no purpose in the story, it just seemed to be put there to let us nasty humans know just how bad we are. 'See....you ruin the environment, no you'll ruin these poor little robots'. I DO NOT need to be preached at by liberal, hollywood types like Spielberg and the late Kubrick. The polar ice caps are not gonna melt til the earth is ready for them to melt. As a species we have no control over such things. What hubris. After that, it was all downhill. My problems with the film have already been covered in earlier talkbacks. All except that one. I think I'll go see Moulin Rouge again.
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I sat A.I. a last night. I enjoyed it a lot then, and I've continued to think about the movie. Sure, we all know the complaints... the ending wasn't so great... okay, I agree. Wasn't the best, it didn't really flow well with the movie, and was a touch contrived. It in a way reminded me of the dissapointing ending to "Contact" with the whole science/religion meaning of life explanation from some goofy alien thing... Great build-up... lame ending. However, all of that taken into consideration i still feel that this is an excellent film and one of the years best to this point. This film is off-beat and unconventional... Perhaps why there are such split reactions towards it. I am forced to ask myself the question however... why does a movie like "Fast and the Furious"... get such good reviews (especially on this site) and then a movie like AI is bashed across the boards. All due respect to those who've enjoyed F and F... i saw it the other night, i sorta had some fun... some of the action was well-done and cool, but all-in-all it was poorly acted and unoriginal... And then you have an AI... that brings to the table strong ponderous (is that a word?) themes, and interesting characters. And yet, AI gets trashed... well... Personally, I think it has too much to do with prior expectations. AI has been the buzz for a long time now... Even had some guys (cool ones at that) online for hours trying to solve some riddles and what not... My point is that watching a movie with the names Kubrick and Speilberg attached to it brings too many expectations to the table... I think that anything less than the best film ever was bound to leave people disapointed. Whereas a movie like Fast and the Furious comes in... it looks ridiculously bad from the trailers... and yet people rave about it. Why? because it didn't suck nearly as bad as 'Gone in 60' or 'Driven' AND it had "cool cars" in it. But last night, when i watched AI, i tried to forget that Speilberg did it... and pretend that it was some no-name director, and I really enjoyed it. Say whatever you will about how well Speilberg did this movie... I feel that he did as good of a job as anyone could have. There were so many scenes that i noticed in the film that would've been lame or unrealistic if it weren't for the Ol' Speilberg magic. Let's face it, he's the most successful director in Hollywood, and thats for a reason. Anyone with the nerve to criticize the man is just flat out ignorant. As for this review... I have to say it is possibly the most ridicolous thing I've seen on this site. I've seen a couple of sketchy articles... but this one, is just flat out terrible. Who is this guy? Let's have a review of the film please, not a fuckin lecture on android ethics or whatever... Please... Sure, Isaac Asimov is a very talented and credible sci-fi writer... but His "rules" belong in his stories. How lame is that... bringing other rules into THIS story. Thats the beauty of film... the writer/director makes his own damn rules and creates his own world. This wasn't Isaac Asimov's A.I. It was Steven Speilberg's A.I. Therefore... i dont give two shits about WHAT Isaac Asimov says. After seeing a film like the 6th Sense a few times... i can bring up so many questions... If you REALLY want to get into it, The film makes very little sense and there several HUGE contradictions and things that just flat-out dont work. Yet, upon seeing the movie for the first time these things dont really occur to us. We are sucked into the film and we like it because we choose to. We ignore these flaws because its more fun that way. M. Night Shyamalan allows us to enjoy the film and accept whatever we choose as reality. The same applies here. Sure... maybe a real android boy (some of us seem to know more about them than others) wouldn't choose to eat Spinach... and maybe they would've put some type of cap in his esophagus But while some of us were busy over-analyzing this, others were watching the movie... enjoying it... and picking up on the fact that these two boys were competing and that David was trying to prove that he could do whatever his human brother could do. I was actually taking the whole movie in... so i didnt say to myself, "aww man... last time i saw a mechanical 9 year old boy eat spinach it luckily didnt make it down his pipe because the brilliant designers thought to put some type of plug in there... THESE FOOLS!!!!!" I'm reminded of this dork who went to high school with me, and used to read (and study) this huge book he had on Star Trek. He could recite on command what types of meals were served on various planets around the galaxy and what hairdo's were popular... all kindsa useful information... meanwhile i think the kid was failing outta school. Anyway... Enough from me. Rock on Speilberg, anyone who hasnt seen this movie, still check it out, its a decent flik... and three words for the rest of you - i know a lotta the gang is behind me when i say, "Suspension of Disbelief".
Marvelous out -
It's ignorant to criticize the logic of a AI (mecha design, cloning, etc) when this movie is obviously trying to be a huge adult "bedtime story" fairytale. Hence the narrator. Its trying to be mythical and dreamlike, not logical!!! It's trying to address themes of death, family, identity, and life's purpose within the surreal framework of a Disney-esque reality. The same people that criticize this movie for logic would probably also make fun of modern art in a museum. "I can't believe that movie, BAMBI, I mean, animals don't talk!"
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Exactly. You hit it perfect. Practically no one gets this film. The ending isnt happy sentimentality, its tragic. Its the sadness that this robot has taken on the oh so true trait of humans to wish fairy tales into psuedo reality so that they can live comfortably within a universe that revolves around them (religion, tv, pop culture materialism). Kudos to Spielberg, this is the first real science fiction movie ive seen in a loooooooonnnnnnnnnggggggggg time.
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Isaac Asimov came up with the 3 laws of robotics back when everyone's approach to programming A.I. was to explicitly program every single rule of behavior into the computer themselves. Modern neural network approaches (neural networks were mentioned as the approach used in A.I.) involve the engineers just setting up the basic rules for how neurons interact. The A.I. itself then creates all of its 'rules' of behavior through experience, and these rules are encoded in the connection strengths among potentially millions of artificial neurons. No human engineer actually understands exactly how a resulting encoded rule actually works (except for the simplest examples) and so, in a system like this, it would be next to impossible to program in explicit, high level rules such as "don't hurt people". In fact, speaking of Kubrick, programming such a rule in an intelligent neural network could perhaps most effectively be done by methods such as those explored in 'A Clockwork Orange'.
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...but Superman can't reverse time simply by making the Earth spin backwards either... Lighten up, fer Chrissakes! Science fiction (I did say "fiction") requires a certain suspension of disbelief! Oh yeah, and the Easter Bunny doesn't exist either. Sorry.
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Go back and read Pauline Kael's review. Christ, you fanboys would probably be happier if it had been directed by Hal Needham and starred Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise and Jerry Reed.
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if I hear another sick geek complain that "hey I'm an engineer at MIT and I've been creating sex robot women for my own pleasure and there's no way they'd have been made so sloppily that spinach could affect them!" Please shut up now. And El Cosmico apparently has deemed that no movie can be made without adhering to Issac Asimov's robot rules. Let me also add that apparently no fantasy movie should be made without hobbits, and that martial-arts movies now must include wire-fu. Read my lips. FANTASY. FAIRY TALE. Besides, if David were created to emulate a child, wouldn't he be afraid at times? Even if you assume these robots "mustn't harm humans", which is never explicity stated here, David never tried to consciously hurt Martin, he was looking for protection & fell into the pool. I didn't think the movie was without flaws, but the technical engineering questions you people bring up just makes me giggle. Spenworks and BaronFlapJack have got great views on the film. Nice job boys. I can't remember a movie sticking with me for so long after I'd left the theater in years. Oh, and the reviewers are quickly losing credibility when they pan this but rave over Fast & the Furious and crap like Pearl Harbor. I mean come on...
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A lot of fuss was made about robots prime directives and what not. Thou shall not hurt humans, thou shalt not eat food and muck up ones circuts, etc... I believe these issues are addressed within the film, though subtly. The way I like it. Something caught me as being off during the spinach eating sequence. The teddy bear "Teddy" warned David to not eat. "You will break", he says. I wondered at that. How could a relatively low tech toy have more common sense than the most advanced robot ever made? But the explanation came a bit later when William Hurt discussed David's abilities to think and act beyond original programing. To be more human. To have all information and yet still come to a separate and unique conclusion than another might. One might argue that it's an inherently human trait to see common facts, know common facts yet still dream that in this one case the outcome of an action would be different. The outcome can defy any logic that may have preceded at this point in time. To strive to be bigger than one is and even capable of ever being. It was that defying of logic and reason toward the realm of dreamlike aspiration that helped the David robot persue a very unlikely and illogical quest. David probably knew in his programming that he would break if he ate, but he wished for a different outcome. To be something bigger than he was.
Does this happen in humanity? Hell yes. I remember the Hale Bob Cult that killed themselves with arsenic spiked punch to make themselves available for a UFO hiding in the tail of the Hale Bob comet. They bought an industrial telescope 3 weeks before their suicide. They bought it so as to view the UFO ahead of time and witness it like a child looking forward to Christmas. They returned the telescope to the store after a few days claiming it was broken. The salesperson asked; "Did you see stars?" Yes they did. "Did you see the comet?" Yes they did. Well then how was it broken? Elementary; they didn't see their UFO in the tail of the comet. That could mean only one logical conclusion to them... the telescope was broken.
As for poor robot design. I have a fan that was made in 1942. It is a wonderful device made the way machines were before plastic became the material used in consumer electronics. It must weigh 10 pounds and whirs it's metal blades at some insane speeds creating a virtual tornado. As with the fans of the time, the protective cage the fan sits in has gaps large enough to stick a babies head through. I'm not sure when some designer figured out that if you made the gaps smaller fewer kids will loose fingers plus you'd still get all the wind, but it did have to take someone figuring it out before doing it. Sometimes we focus on what we assume are givens and neglect what should be brainless. Such as... why waste materials shielding the inside of a robot when we programmed him to never eat? Then put in the ability to act beyond programming. Ouch!
Frank -
I also wrote a talk back that was rather critical of El Cosmico and this site, and supported AI... where is it? I have no clue.
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What this film really could have used was some porcelain deer.
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and I am sorry for any spoilers... but did it ever occur to any of you to look beyond the explanation that the mechas gave David about re-creating Monica? They tell David the whole DNA thing first as a way to convince him to give up his quest, then when they see the determination of his will, they agree to 'give him what he wants'. Now hang on here...remember when they tell David about how they got his house, it's from his stored memories. How do they recreate Monica, it's from his stored memories...they just convince him otherwise to appease him and make him think that he is having a genuine moment with his mother loving him. They are exploiting David for HIS knowledge of the past, as even if they were able to pull other memories from out of the air, without David as a link, they'd never know if these memories were real or not. They are using David as their link to study the past, and the end is false-sentimentality, covering a subtly bleak ending, with Davids quest for love ending in a false belief in love, to be followed by more emptiness, loneliness, and probing for info on the past. Anyway, that is my take on the ending, and the fact that it can make me think in those kind of directions, speaks volumes towards the quality and subtext of the movie. I would like to think that Kubrick would be proud of this homage to his filmmaking.
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I just wanted to make a quick correction. If you are a complete die hard movie fan, you stay until all the credits roll. If you had done that decadentdave, you would have seen that the last image on the screen before it went black were the words "For Stanley Kubrick."
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I liked AI alot, and even though it wasn't perfect, it is a very good movie. Asimov's Robot rules have nothing to do with this movie. As for eating spinach, robots need esophogi, or throat at least, for speaking, no? Wouldnt it make more sense than having them talk by making sound out of their neck, like Gigolo Joe's built in music player (a touch of genius!) And I feel sorry for you boys who wanted to see more Jane, the latex clad hottie she-bot. Oh boo hoo. Go see tomb raider. This lady's loving the Law! I have one complaint about where they stuck Coney Island. It seems to be very close to manhattan, as if it were in northeast Queens! Coney's way out in southeast Brooklyn! How did David see Pinocchioland in Coney Island if he was floating around near Radio City in midtown? He must have been floating a long time because I figure Coney is at least forty miles from midtown manhattan. Anyone notice this?
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Think of the movie like a blind date. You've met her nice looking sisters (E.T., Jaws, Schindlers List) and her cousins (2001, Clockwork Orange) so you have good expectations. From the first minutes you converse with her, she's beautiful and interesting. You have a wonderful date, filled with great dinner conversation and thought provoking ideas. In the middle of the date she lets you know she's into WWF and Monster Trucks, but you're willing to overlook that because the date is going so well. The end of the date is drawing near and you're making out like crazy...you've met the girl of your dreams!! Then, suddenly, she undresses in front of you sporting a woody twice as big as yours...
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How long does it take for a post to appear I wonder? Minutes? Days?
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I saw the movie Sunday and I can honestly say it changed me. David "is" very much like a human bacause he is doing what is at our very core(some may say our soul), he is looking to be loved. What we strive for in religion, addictions, other humans, pretty much everything is to be loved(or that feeling of being loved) Mr Spielberg has made a fairy tale/spiritual tale which is beautiful as well as sad and depressing, making us ponder what it is that we are all about...this seems too much for many people to handle. Mr. Spielberg has done something for me that years of therapy was unable to do...thank you sir, I get it now
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1. David was programmed to behave like a child. Ask any parent -- a child does not conform to the Three Laws of Robotics. They often don't conform to what their parents tell them. 2. Since David was programmed to behave like a child, he is programmed to learn like a child. A child learns by mimicking his parents. The idea was to have the robot be in a child-like state permanently. Therefore, you're not going to program every possible bit of knowledge into it so it can learn like a real child. 3. It wasn't just a couple of pieces of spinach. He was shoving huge forkfuls of that stuff in there. There were probably filters, but they were overloaded by the sheer amount of food going down there (notice how he didn't shut down immediately but only after a few mouthfuls).
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Before reading the review here, I was saying the same thing, A.I isnt a great movie but it sure is a lot better than the Muck that is regularly released during the summer, ie, Phantom Menace, Godzilla and this Summers Tomb Raider, Pearl Harbor and Fast and the Furious.
I thought it was kinda weird that they never resolved the archs of the family. Very unsympathetic but is that the message. Most of the robots are more likable than the humans? I didnt like the Mother or The Father or the demon Boy which awoke from a coma.
Wasnt real pleased with the whole Robot destoying- Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome type scenes. I did like the Submerged NYC stuff but agree that it could have ended at the bottom of the water.
I really enjoyed Teddy too and it avoided the Jar Jar or cutsey sidekick character.
I have to agree with Orions Angel. If nothing else, it makes you think which is rare in movies these days. Someone else called it Garbage? Nahhh, I dont think so. At least it tries to be something more than Explosions, sex scenes and gross out jokes like most of the movies released these days. Maybe not totally successful and the sum of too many people but I am glad I saw it.
I think you should too. -
Yes AI is brilliant! And by the way Cosmico, DNA is contained in EVERY CELL IN THE HUMAN BODY, INCLUDING HAIR AND ITS ROOT. And yes it does help to know something of biblical mythology and fairy tales to get this movie. Bottom line is DAVID is sort of the ADAM of the next evolution of humans, the synthetic type. He is given the "forbidden fruit" by his "mother" in the form of seven code words which expels him from the Garden of Eden. Then he is able to love, and his primary motivating force becomes to be loved in return. His quest takes the form of the Pinnochio fairy tale, so what? Is Pinnochio a lame story because the blue fairy makes him into a real boy? AI is just a fairy tale in that sense. I think it is a clever move to have the world evolve around David so that by the time he is discovered by the Ultra-Advanced Mecha Beings he has actually become a real boy, because the world is now populated by part human-part synthetic beings. Yes it's goofy that TEDDY kept the lock of hair from his mother, but doesn't it fulfill the mission that his "brother" Martin gave him? "If you cut a lock of mother's hair then she will love you" Well, it came true... eventually. And the fact that the cloned mother will only survive one day seems silly unless you look at it this way. Human life is fleeting, and we all know we will die (and in this case, that our parents will die) but as long as we connected with other humans, loved and were loved by them, it makes it bearable. Which is all David was looking for, and he waited for an eternity to have it. Jeez I'm getting misty thinking about it. That's why AI is BRILLIANT!
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I, too, have misgivings about the film, but still, folks, how many movies take you as far into an existential state as this one does? I thought the ending was audacious. As far as El Cosmico's concerns go: 1) It's easy to suppose that there's a root piece stuck in the lock. 2) It's easy to suppose that the futuristic robots had the technology to use David's memory of his mother to infuse the clone with the same personality (and I wish Spielberg had gone that route). 3) It is inexplicable that she can only live for one day, and I don't know what the answer is to that, nor why David finally sleeps forever. Still and all, what fascinating ideas and feelings to contemplate! El Cosmico is simply wrong about the movie having the better ending under the sea. That would have been completely unsatisfying. He is wrong to apply Asimov's rules of robots to this situation. We are on another level of sentience. Part of David's programming is to act "boyish." He would absolutely force spinach down his gut in his one-upsmanship with his organic brother. He would absolutely not let water down his gut when he is trying to protect himself (and he was clearly in a protective mode at that point). It is fascinating that observers like El Cosmico get so nitpicky with what David knows and doesn't know as a robot, and yet never questions the fact that David doesn't recognize an amusement park statue for what it is. That's because, again, he is programmed to be a boy with a boyish acceptance of the mystical. The film is, after all, a fairy tale, which is why the narrator works so well throughout (sorry, again, El C.). My main gripe is a structural one. I thought it unfortunate that David is left in the woods while the film introduces Jude Law. Better that David meet him in the city right before the murder. I also wondered about a manufacturing plant in the middle of what appears to be an abandoned New York City, and Professor Hobby's explanation about clues they planted for David to find them. It's not a perfect movie, but the effects and filmmaking are seamless and it takes you to places in your mind that major motion pictures never invite you to visit. I thinks it's an extraordinary experience.
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Almost every Kubrick movie has a provocative ending that defies expectations. A lot of people still don't understand what the heck the ending of 2001 is all about. And the ending of Clockwork Orange only reverses all of the plot setup, rendering all of that brainwashing pointless.
Kurbrick movies are about using movies as a mirror of the human condition. His catalog shows all facets of humanity.
AI brings together some themes he previously explored, like the inherently flawed nature of humanity and how it trickles into its creations (ala HAL in 2001.) David is NOT perfect. The more human he is, the more free will he has to be selfish and violent (as previous commentaries have noted).
What makes the film so tragic is that the people around David fail to realize that David's "threat" to society isn't a flaw in his programming but, like I said, his freedom from Isamov's 3-laws. Gigalo Joe and the other robots had more than enough strength to defy capture and execution, but they were programmed not to bodily harm humans. In the end, they had to comply fatalistically, as the nanny did. But David reacts in a more naturalistic way, which both saves him and dooms him in the end.
David's capacity for love IS flawed in its limits to his mother, but how many people out there other than Mother Theresa or a tripping LSD dropper love everyone equally?
What people expect is an idealized hero like the Christlike ET who has no flaws, and David doesn't pass muster. He's all too human.
Therefore the film's ending may please those who identify with David's "Oedipal" drives, and disturbs those who see it for what it is.
Kubrick never saw fit to put tidy Hollywood happy endings on his films. The contrast of Spielberg's E.T.-like romanticism with Kubrick's cynicism creates a really interesting end product that will resonate differently from person to person.
Kubrick also tended to use his characters as vehicles for his message more than fully fleshed out individuals. They are all studies on character types, or character flaws, that together provide a take on the human condition.
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The adventures of surly mechabear...someone call Dreamworks Television division!
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A.I. reminds me of a popular Smiths song, How Soon is Now.
"I am human and I need to be loved...just like everybody else does." -
OK, I too have complaints about the ending, and I do wish it had ended with David trapped under the ferris wheel. It just FELT like it was ending, and then more and more strange things kept happening, that only seemed to be happening because... well I don't exactly know. All I know is that I was content that David was content with the Blue Fairy under the sea. However, let me say that the first two hours - HOLY CRAP. I watched with a smile on my face, the entire second act and much of the first. What a world Speilberg created! This movie is like a high-tech, expensive E.T. This is what Speilberg wished he could have done with E.T. with the new money and resources available. Am I rambling yet? alright, I just wanted to add that I hated this movie becuase of the tricky ending immediately after it ended, but the more time I have had to think about it, I'm still not satisfied, however, I am pleased that Speilberg went out on a limb the way he did, not pleasing everyone but doing what he/Kubrick wanted to do. also many of your posts have helped me appreciate aspects that I did not notice or did not see the significance of.
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Jul 02, 2001 6:53:41 PM CDT
BaronVonFlapjack is 100% correct. AI is about how humans have t
by dr_faust
The movie's theme is the same as "Wings of Honneamise." In a nutshell, we have to delude ourselves into thinking our lives have meaning. Otherwise there is no motivation to accomplish anything.
The movie pushes its point when David and Gigolo Jim go to see Dr. Know. Jim tells David that the blue fairy is a fantasy. A thing that organa believe: things that don't have any facts to back them up. AI pushes this message at us for 4/5ths of the movie then in the ending it implies that the reason cloned humans don't live is because they don't have a soul. If anything the movie could have been consistant.
Reg Mechas are hollow. They have no drive, dreams or motivation. They wouldn't do anything unless given instructions by humans.
David has a fantasy that drives him to do all the things he does. Without this fantasy he is as dead as the other mecha. -
Jul 02, 2001 7:54:56 PM CDT
People who hate negative reviews and bitch about the talkbalkers
by domisinnerchild
Look, I know you're upset because everybody is ganging up and pissing all over something you were looking forward to. But writting insults does nothing but show you're incredibly thin-skinned and unable to discuss what you see in the trailers/plot summary/screen shots/etc. that might make the movie good in your opinion. Jumping on the lynch mob band wagon does not automatically mean the person has had his perceived stupid little brain brainwashed into lacking an opinion on the movie once he eventually sees it. All negative early press does is hurt the opening week box office (when crap movies typically make like 40% of their entire gross). If the movie is infact pretty good despite early bad word (I.E. X-Men), the word of mouth will spread and eventually the haters will drop down their eight bucks. At that point, they will make their decision if their like the movie or not, not a week before after reading an AICN post. Isn't it actually better that they go in with lowered expectations? Do you remember going to see that obvious crap-fest starring the annoying guy from Moonlighting? I think that made Die Hard twice as good when I snuck into it before a showing of Midnight Run. Peace.
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Well said, El Cosmico. I saw AI yesterday, and I couldn't have put it better myself. I felt like I was watching "The Thin Red Line" again, praying and praying that it would end, and having my prayers go unanswered.
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I haven't seen anyone mention the Wizard of Oz. Obviously a lot of this story was based on Pinnochio but there was a lot of imagery/plot from The Wizard of Oz stories as well.
Child on a journey back home. Travels with Teddy bear companion that is a cross between Toto and Tick-Tock. Along the way meets nimble, dancing, mechanical man (Scarecrow/Tin woodsman.) Mechanical man takes child to Rouge City (Emerald City). To meet Mr. Know (the Wizard) who has all the answers.
Don't know if the original story had these elements but its clear that Spielberg was either paying homage to Oz or simply stealing much of its structure. One could argue that its pretty standard adventure fairy tale stuff, but you have to admit the similarities are striking. -
I have one thing to say ITS A FAIRY TAIL YOU MORONS!!!! A happy ending??? what movie did you see? Its tragic he only gets to spend one day with his mom and its over..You call that happy?? Please El let someone else do the reviews beacuse yours stink. AI is a very good movie in a summer of STANK! But being the new fad among fanboys you have to trash it...Consider me a EX-FANBOY
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*Spoilers*
Can't say I was totally thrilled with A.I. - a bit too hopeless, overwhelming and pathetic (in the aforementioned hopeless way) for my taste. It's good, but not what I would expect from either Kubrick or Speilberg. But enough of that...
I am somewhat surprised by where the majority of people wanted this movie to end. David trapped under the ferris wheel forever asking a statue to be a real boy is too amzingly cynical, downbeat and heavy. Too hard for even a Kubrick picture. I'm not asking for a happy endning per se, but one not so blatantly sinister. Cutting the film there would have been a huge mistake.
To that end, I welcomed the epilogue of sorts. The aliens (though apparently they're actually evolved AI - a very important detail that is not at all stressed in the film) made me nervous but as the sequence progressed I was more reminded of the wondeful finale of 2001, with narration. But it fell apart. First of all - the little issue of the mother only being able to live a single day is sooooo contrived and ludicrous it's almost laughable and I cannot believe Kubrick himself wanted it this way (according to what I've read about the ending). But even assuming it made it this far the best way, I believe, to have ended it would have been with one big Kubrickian question mark. Cut the scene before night, or end it with them having dinner - whatever, but before her death; leave it open.
And btw, did that narration say David never woke up to? WTF? Even Teddy got screwed over (yes, I was one of the people wimpering in the theater when he pulled out the lock of hair).
And for the record, Eyes Wide Shut was a stunning film. A worthy finale to Kubrick's amazing career.
-brendan -
AI was flawed and thought provoking filmmaking. I can't decide if it was a flwed masterpiece or a noble failure, which seems to be the argument everyone is having. But it is clear that the film is not a home run or a complete bomb. It made me think, it made me wonder, I want to see it again soon. It was slow but never boring, the acting was great, and the ending threw me off...but maybr it shouldn't have...El Cosmico complaining about the technicalities of building robots and stuff is just bullshit. The robot was supposed to be as human as possible...that meant it had fear and that is why David pulled his brother into the pool...the movie is flawed but El Cosmico's complaints are just bizzarre.
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Because (we assume), by this point, 2000 years later, they too can not only think, but feel and wonder. Their ancestors were created by humans. In other words, by that time, humans may have reached a mythical, almost god-like, place in their society. And (here's the important bit), IT'S ONLY A F***ING MOVIE! EVERYTHING YOU SEE ON SCREEN WAS PUT THERE BY THE FILMMAKERS! IT ISN'T REAL! DEAL WITH IT! Whew!
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Sure there are those out there who are going to say, but it was deep and emotional, though provoking even. Yes true, but was it worth the time to get to those thoughts? How much did we even think of them as we left the theater? My answer is not once. Everything brought up in this movie was worth a quick glance and then it was gone. I'd of rather watched "Eyes Wide Shut" twice than have to sit through this movie again. I absolutely hated it, two of my friends went and hated it just as much. I got up feeling like someone had just mugged me for $8.50. Hell, I went and saw "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" and got more enjoyment out of that. Plus it was worth the $6 or more! Only good aspects of "A.I" were Haley Joel Osment's acting, Jude Law, and Teddy. Special effects were alright, not fantastic, but alright. Don't let the preview of "A.I." fool you and lure you in because you'll be extremely disappointed at the outcome. If they make a sequel I'm going to personally find that Spiel/brik and kick his ass. Make another damn "JAWS" or focus on making "Minority Report" the shit!
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Food is at a scarcity in the world of 'A.I.'. Since Mecha vastly outnumber Orga, isn't their inability to eat crucial to their design? If the spinach hadn't damaged David, he would likely have continued eating (and becoming more human). This afternoon I'll see 'A.I.' again. The film is I think largely and peculiarly disinterested in scientific verisimilitude; it is a 'Jetsons' future. Actually, aside from crucial links to previous films by Kubrick and Spielberg, the movie offers a pretty thick history of science fiction and fantasy film, literature and art. The movie is a fairy tale, and perhaps appropriately it is more fiction than science.
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"So let me get this straight: Superman can fly and he comes from another planet...yeah right!"
"In Scene #72 of Phantom Menace you can clearly see theat the Pod Racers are not up to the code specified in the bylaws of the Pod Racing Association. THIS INJUSTICE WILL NOT STAND!!!"
"I've been to the Hershey Factory and I can tell you one thing for certain. The production team behind Willy Wonka was WAY off."
Please if you're going to waste my time by having the most asenine
nitpicky critiques of a film you clearly wanted to hate going in.
I had a conversation with Peter Hunt the director of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" once and he told me something I will never forget.
"Do you know what bothers me the most? It's not the fans who come by and want to discuss every detail of production, it's the people who come up to me and point out the most useless detail about my films. I have to wonder if they were even watching it. -
Now that I've seen this movie, I regret ever being afraid of all these negative reviews. So far I think everyone of them can eat shit. El Cosmico, your ending would have been crap. No, it would! You wanted that hopeless ending with everything up in the air and unfulfilled? It would have been the most unsatisfying ending EVER! Now the ending we got was ambiguous and cheapened by the silly narrator gimic. We don't know what will happen to David now, or if he's just going to sleep forever now or shoot if he's even going to function anymore. I didn't like that, but I don't think trivial stuff like the spinach or the absence of the three laws of robotics is "unforgivable." No one said this world had mechas or AI's figured out, and hey guess what, maybe David preceeded the time when Isaac Assimov's sensibilties hit the general public! It didn't hurt the story at all. Now that said, my pet peve was the narrator. I think the movie should have STARTED with the robots(I don't think it would have hurt to let them be aliens, but I don't think it's as clear as you make it sound, El) in the future finding David and then accessing his memory and learning everything about him and thus telling us the movie. That would mean no William Hurt "let's build a little love child!" scene which I wouldn't have missed. It could have been inserted elsewhere. The narrative would have had to stick to David and not jump from character to character the way it did, which would have been interesting too, but I think had it been a framing element(minus the awful narrator) it would have sat better with you and a lot of other people. Of course, based on the ending you wanted, perhaps there was never any pleasing you to begin with.
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To those who have seen the film (spoilers), the ending is without a question the most controversial portion of the film. Many have scoffed at the conclusion as sentimental and Spielbergian. I will now counter this view by saying the ending was pure Kubrick. David's mother (and in a sense, humanity) had completely traded roles with her mecha son. She was now being "made" to fulfill his need for love. She says " I love you david, I always have." Do we believe this to be true? Or was she programmed by the advanced mecha's of the future to say these things. The narration was beautiful and gave me chills. It asks the question, " what is love, why do we need it, and who makes us need it? Are we basically programmed by a higher power and are we any different than the film's mecha's? This movie was superb! Please let me know what you think about this notion. Thank You
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Some comments/problems I had with this film:
First, I'm not concerned about the violations of the "three laws." Asimov was not some visionary guru; the Three Laws are really just a statement of obvious functions ANY tool is built with (it must do what it's designed to do, it must be safe to use, it must be durable). The Three Laws wouldn't apply to any attempt to create a true artificial intellegence. David is not meant to be a tool, he is meant to simulate a real boy, therefore he must be able to behave in ways real boys do (ie, disobedience). Notice that David does not seem to be built with abnormal strength, or his brother would probably be dead.
Did anyone else get the impression that Monica DID love David a great deal? She seemed pretty upset about leaving him in the woods. I even got the impression that she preferred David to her real son, but that she understood that this wasn't 'right.' Therefore, she leaves David, dispite the grief it causes her.
Observation: How in the world do you leave a robot in the woods? Shouldn't it be easy for him to find his way home?
Wouldn't it have made more sense for the future robots to have created a robot Monica for David instead of a clone that dies? They just want him to be happy, right?
I never bought this notion that the 'imprinting' could never be altered. It might be necessary to the plot, but I don't buy it. Of course programming can be altered.
Why exactly was it necessary to have the Ferris wheel fall on David? It seemed to me that he was trapped by his own desires, not by the wheel. It's not like he would have just left after a week if the Ferris wheel hadn't been stopping him.
Are we supposed to believe that a ceramic statue with cloth outfit can survive for two thousand years underwater, but then fall to pieces when David touches it?
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Where the hell did my earlier post go to? Surely it wasn't wiped off on purpose.
Oh well, I'm sure you all miss the brilliant things I had to say.... -
Just when ya think all of AICN has gone completely bug-fuck...a few honest souls come forth with the truth....I saw AI yesterday with my wife, and I think it was amazing. The ending is just as the good doctor describes..pure Kubrick...haunting, touching....you don't know whether to cry, or shudder...let's face it folks...if you're going to make a modern day pinnochio, you can't crap out and not gicce the puppet his dream.....and what was his dream?...no not to be a real boy, that was just a means to an end..he wanted the love of his mother...and in the end (spoiler) that's what he got....As for Vic Franco who posted ahead of me..I gotta say, man...you are so wrong...the acting was superb, the actress playing the mother was wonderful, and the scene where she abandons little david is one of the toughest I've ever had to watch...makes you want to cry...Haley should get an Oscar for that moment alone...Jude law is great as gigolo joe...what you ahve here folks...is perhaps the best freakin movie you are likely to get till Lord of the rings comes in December....so go see it..don't let the angry young men of AICN taint your souls...yah yah yah..i love AICN as much as anyone, but holy living FUCK..some folks here get behind a flick, then let the mob mentality here decide for them if they should like it or not....well go SEE it..then make up your own mind....anyhow, this talkback is about to be pushed into oblivion....so see ya at the next one.....
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What the hell was with the ending of that movie! That whole thing with not a single person surviving an ice age was bull shit! With all this technology these humans had, they could survive something that ancient cave man had survived if not one but two ice ages!
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This movie was neither good or bad ,just mediocre.The ending was comic booky and completely contrived.Why the hell are there a bunch of foreigners running around new Jersy? Why not dump the robot when they brought the kid home? Ya'll gotta stop trying to justify this piece of dreck...The only reason repeated viewings of this flick is so that you can brainwash yourselves into thinking it's better than it is. If I see a movie i don't need to go see it again if it was good.Only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. Admit to yourselves that it wasn't that good and get on with your lives. I mean the only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. The best way to convince sheep like people into believing something is to constantly repeat it. I mean the only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. I f I had to contantly reassure myself about something I had made my mind up about, then there would be some cause for doubt. Doudt leads to confusion and self denial, which leads to that futile attempt at resolution. It's similar to what a heroin addict goes through after that first hit. They call it chasing the red dragon. Dragons don't exist,so what are they chasing? A dream i suppose just like ya'lls quest to find a good meaningful movie somewhere in this insipid, badly directed, dull-witted ,badly written, unimaginative dialogued ,liberal crapfest.
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This movie was neither good or bad ,just mediocre.The ending was comic booky and completely contrived.Why the hell are there a bunch of foreigners running around new Jersy? Why not dump the robot when they brought the kid home? Ya'll gotta stop trying to justify this piece of dreck...The only reason repeated viewings of this flick is so that you can brainwash yourselves into thinking it's better than it is. If I see a movie i don't need to go see it again if it was good.Only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. Admit to yourselves that it wasn't that good and get on with your lives. I mean the only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. The best way to convince sheep like people into believing something is to constantly repeat it. I mean the only reason for repeated viewings is confusion and self denial. I f I had to contantly reassure myself about something I had made my mind up about, then there would be some cause for doubt. Doudt leads to confusion and self denial, which leads to that futile attempt at resolution. It's similar to what a heroin addict goes through after that first hit. They call it chasing the red dragon. Dragons don't exist,so what are they chasing? A dream I suppose, just like ya'lls quest to find a good, meaningful movie somewhere in this insipid, badly directed, dull-witted ,badly written, unimaginative ,liberal crapfest.
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Hey,
I am tired of hearing of this 'collaboration' of Spielberg and Kubrick. I have heard different versions of how Spielberg came to direct AI. 1) That in 1994 Kubrick felt Spielberg would make it better. 2) That Kubricks family asked Spielberg to do it after his death. 3) That Kubrick left it to Spielberg in his will.
I do recall how when making The Shining in the UK - Spielberg was making Raiders in the same studios. Kubrick thought that Spielberg was a jerk. I am not sure if that opinion changed in the light of Schindlers List and Spielbergs adult themed films.
In any case comparing Spielberg and Kubrick is like comparing The Beatles to Backstreet Boys. They are in completely different leagues. Spielberg did best with Jaws and Raiders, both brilliant films and for me the height of his career. Kubrick has never missed and has never sold out. The greatest director of all time. His version of AI would have changed film. -
Hey,
I am tired of hearing of this 'collaboration' of Spielberg and Kubrick. I have heard different versions of how Spielberg came to direct AI. 1) That in 1994 Kubrick felt Spielberg would make it better. 2) That Kubricks family asked Spielberg to do it after his death. 3) That Kubrick left it to Spielberg in his will.
I do recall how when making The Shining in the UK - Spielberg was making Raiders in the same studios. Kubrick thought that Spielberg was a jerk. I am not sure if that opinion changed in the light of Schindlers List and Spielbergs adult themed films.
In any case comparing Spielberg and Kubrick is like comparing The Beatles to Backstreet Boys. They are in completely different leagues. Spielberg did best with Jaws and Raiders, both brilliant films and for me the height of his career. Kubrick has never missed and has never sold out. The greatest director of all time. His version of AI would have changed film. -
Hey,
I am tired of hearing of this 'collaboration' of Spielberg and Kubrick. I have heard different versions of how Spielberg came to direct AI. 1) That in 1994 Kubrick felt Spielberg would make it better. 2) That Kubricks family asked Spielberg to do it after his death. 3) That Kubrick left it to Spielberg in his will.
I do recall how when making The Shining in the UK - Spielberg was making Raiders in the same studios. Kubrick thought that Spielberg was a jerk. I am not sure if that opinion changed in the light of Schindlers List and Spielbergs adult themed films.
In any case comparing Spielberg and Kubrick is like comparing The Beatles to Backstreet Boys. They are in completely different leagues. Spielberg did best with Jaws and Raiders, both brilliant films and for me the height of his career. Kubrick has never missed and has never sold out. The greatest director of all time. His version of AI would have changed film. -
Hey,
I am tired of hearing of this 'collaboration' of Spielberg and Kubrick. I have heard different versions of how Spielberg came to direct AI. 1) That in 1994 Kubrick felt Spielberg would make it better. 2) That Kubricks family asked Spielberg to do it after his death. 3) That Kubrick left it to Spielberg in his will.
I do recall how when making The Shining in the UK - Spielberg was making Raiders in the same studios. Kubrick thought that Spielberg was a jerk. I am not sure if that opinion changed in the light of Schindlers List and Spielbergs adult themed films.
In any case comparing Spielberg and Kubrick is like comparing The Beatles to Backstreet Boys. They are in completely different leagues. Spielberg did best with Jaws and Raiders, both brilliant films and for me the height of his career. Kubrick has never missed and has never sold out. The greatest director of all time. His version of AI would have changed film. -
Hey,
I am tired of hearing of this 'collaboration' of Spielberg and Kubrick. I have heard different versions of how Spielberg came to direct AI. 1) That in 1994 Kubrick felt Spielberg would make it better. 2) That Kubricks family asked Spielberg to do it after his death. 3) That Kubrick left it to Spielberg in his will.
I do recall how when making The Shining in the UK - Spielberg was making Raiders in the same studios. Kubrick thought that Spielberg was a jerk. I am not sure if that opinion changed in the light of Schindlers List and Spielbergs adult themed films.
In any case comparing Spielberg and Kubrick is like comparing The Beatles to Backstreet Boys. They are in completely different leagues. Spielberg did best with Jaws and Raiders, both brilliant films and for me the height of his career. Kubrick has never missed and has never sold out. The greatest director of all time. His version of AI would have changed film. -
As someone who works in the industry, loves movies and theatre, and has had the honor of working with Steven Spielberg (I've been doing story editing and development for over fifteen years), I'm greatly disappointed by "A.I." But I still believe it's worth seeing. In my own opinion it's proof of a number of things - proof of Steven Spielberg's artistry, proof of his passion, and proof of his fallibility. It's very difficult for any one of us who is passionate and deeply devoted to films and film making to step back and look at any film with the same objectivity of audience members who aren't involved in the industry in any way. However, in the end those of us who do create any kind of entertainment do so primarily for that audience. If we just made films for ourselves or for others like us then we'd eventually become so boring and elitist that we'd become extinct. Many do. It is sometimes, for some film makers, a struggle to develop a larger audience and bring an audience along so that as 'creators' or 'entertainers' we can tell better stories, make richer films and plays, or write more thoughtful and complicated books. We all want to raise the bar - whether it's drama or comedy. Many truly wonderful and talented people who make films have unique perspectives on life that they want to share through their work (I'm purposefully avoiding using the word "art" because it presumes too much, expects too much, and seems a little pompous I believe.) But, in my own opinion (I don't want to presume I'm speaking for anyone other than myself) if you do want to educate or elevate your audience, and make it possible for them to enjoy more complicated and exiting ideas then you have to respect them, and keep them in mind, and not let your enthusiasm or your "vision" overwhelm them - OR you. "A.I.", I believe, overwhelms both the audience and the filmmaker.
It's overcomplicated. Not too complex, or too rich, just too damn complicated with things that have nothing to do with the story being told. Oddly, the film's basic structure struggles to be clean, and simple and uncomplicated - like a well made bowl or cup - so that its content can be enjoyed, a content rich with new flavors. That's great! But the structure can't contain or hold more than it's built for, so in this instance all the good stuff just spills out all over the place and makes a mess. A beautiful mess, granted, but a mess. The best example I can give in "A.I." has to do with the confusion of the third act. If you are among the devoted fans of science fiction or science fantasy then you'll not be confused by the graceful and compassionate Mecha who rescue David from his icy tomb. However, I can tell you that the vast majority of every audience with whom I've seen the film has thought these were aliens from another planet. That's not good. It means that a critical plot point is missed, so that the story Steven Spielberg wants to tell is not heard or enjoyed by his audience. That's not a fault of the audience, that's a fault of the filmmaker. Non-film makers, in spite of what so many self-involved and self-important people may think, are not stupid. They may be used to less intelligent fare, but you can't expect them to make a leap if you don't help them along. I'm not arguing that the film should over explain itself, or 'dumb down' but it should have enough clarity or simplicity that it doesn't confuse. Even a film that aspires to be a great polemic and hopes to stir up emotions, ideas and debate has to have a clear and simple structure (please don't confuse simple with easy or elementary or stupid - a great many simple things are the pathway to complex and advanced ideas and emotions.) "A.I." is almost like an expensive student film made by someone with astounding promise as a filmmaker. It's too much. The beauty of it is lost in the end because he almost tries too hard. The student in this instance - and I don't apologize for the fact that I think Mr. Spielberg was a devoted student of Mr. Kubrick's, and that this played an important role in the choices he made in directing "A.I." - has lost his own personality, and forgotten his audience. Perhaps this happened because of either an attempt to please his teacher or assure himself that he can make something as good or better than his teacher. I don't know. But it's a great mistake, and I think he'll learn from it and be better because of it. I respectfully disagree with people who think the film can end when the David finds his Blue Fairy under the sea. It's incomplete and I personally think you can't end at the second act, no matter how good a curtain ringer it may be. You need to finish your story - and ambiguity is great for classroom discussion and late night debate as an undergraduate, but it doesn't make for a very satisfying entertainment. I think the questions of how food affects David or how water affects him don't matter so long as it's clear that emotions - or the struggle to have them - over-rule the "rules", as it were. I think that's clear to audiences. It shows a character who is different somehow, who is unique. We go to films to see things that are unique and special - even if it's ordinary every day people we want to see the special moments and the special things that happen to them. That's what makes it drama! Raging against rules that exist outside of the story and complaining about how an unique logic spoils the film is a little like a doctor raging against Emily's return at the end of "Our Town" and arguing that people can't come back from the dead. Doctors need to be a part of an audience, too, and leave doctoring out of the theatre long enough to be told a story. But, in the end, with "A.I." the ending only confuses, and the structure fails the content or the content overwhelms the structure I'm still not sure which. Most audiences walk away confused, lost, and feeling either angry or stupid. That's not good. They didn't get to share in anything the film maker assembled FOR THEM, so it ends up feeling like he made it for just a few people, or worse, just for himself. I am certain that that was not Steven Spielberg's intention. I even think that it's a simple fix, and one that he may get to play with in editing for a video release. Or, as I suspect, he's finished this work and will leave it alone and move on. So now we know that the master is not perfect. That's o.k. that's good. Many of you who read this board and visit this site will now be able to stop trying to be Steven Spielberg and be yourselves. And that's even better!! A lot of people are defending him angrily and accusing others of being wrong, or stupid. That's not o.k. Instead, it might be good to hear that even great film makers forget their audiences and make mistakes - expensive expansive and beautiful mistakes, but mistakes none-the-less. If filmmakers are to bring audiences along and educate them to wanting better films then they have to do it carefully and respectfully. Think of it this way - if someone has been fed nothing but a diet of fast food or frozen dinners and you want to treat them to a wonderful meal, as rich and full and ideal a meal as anyone could have, in hopes that they might always want to enjoy food that way - then when it comes time to serve the sorbet between the first and second course don't assume they know it isn't desert. You don't have to talk down to them, and explain to them like they were a child, but you should respect them enough to make sure they don't think it's ice cream. As you set it down in front of them it's ok to say, "This is sorbet, to clean the taste of the soup and prepare you to taste the meat that comes next." And stop there, don't try to go the next step and explain how the palette works or why raspberry versus lemon. Just be clear and direct and move on. They'll appreciate it, and even people who know better already will smile (unless they're snobbish bores who think everyone should know exactly what they know -
On a different site, someone posts this concern about AI:" I was thinking, and another thing really bothers me now: how can they "program" a machine to love? Was David REALLY loving, or did he just APPEAR that way?"
That bothered me too.That's kind of the point i was trying to make in my earlier post about the current top AI scientist at MIT , Marvin Minsky, who points out that we don't even know for sure if another human being is conscious of what he's doing and feeling, or if he's just going through the motions. If Artifical Intelligence is ever realized in any way, he acknowledges we will have the same problem with an artifical being. Hence the question Leo, Was David REALLY loving, or did he just APPEAR that way? Therefore, what bothered me more about this movie is that they never even seem to attempt to answer or explore that question. A question that should drive the plot of a serious AI movie, which I believed this was trying to be, and failed.(NOT A FAIRY TALE) That question seems to be inexplicably dismissed in the opening scene of the film. Instead it is replaced by a question that just seemed out of context, and contrived. If you really listen to the dialogue, the question really comes out of nowhere and doesn't logically follow what was being discussed. This is the question of whether or not humans can love something back that is programmed to unconditionally love us. By making this the central question, it's as if Spielberg wanted the audience identifying and caring for David vs. his intolerant creators to be the failed goal of the film. The movie almost forces us to accept as true the premise that it is possible to program data into a robot that give it the ability to love. The viewer must also accept that we as humans know enough about love, what it truly is, in order to turn it into some type of data to program in a machine, ignoring another great question, how do we define love? Did the film want us to simply accept that David's actions represent real love? I think the film did want us to accept this, to try and make us empathize and pity David for not having his "perfect" love returned. That is the reason for the contrived almost irrelevant question. In my view, that is why the movie fails.How can we empathize and pity an artifical being whose actions don't reflect a true understanding of love, hence another concern raised by someone on a different site:
"And if he just appeared that way (which makes MUCH more sense), why should we care whether or not his love is reciprocated? He's just a computer program... "
Well the fact is, we don't really care, and the movie never tries to answer if he just "appeared" that way, but, in my view, just wanted us to accept that his love was true, even more so than his creators. Well I shouldn't say "we dont care", but I know I didnt care. Someone questioned me for describing David's actions as those of a one track minded brat, but that's how he looked to me. The type of "love" David seemed to have would be considered obsessive and possessive for a human. In fact, David's actions never seem to reflect what true love is in any way. If we can define what true love is in some real way, don't we associate it with our actions, that are usually selfless? We show we care by sacrificing our own wants and desires. David never sacrifices anything, not just for his mother, but his actions never reflect any love for his fellow mecha's or any other character,not in any defining way. In fact, he violently "kills" an identical mecha of himself. David doesn't sacrifice hiw own need or desires for others, he is all about his own needs and desires. His love looks more like a psychotic obsession. At most it is instinct comparable to the level of that of an animal. Imprinted is the perfect word. Ok, he's imprinted, but does he ever LEARN to love? He never seems to LEARN anything beyond his instinctual imprint,and no one really attempts to teach him. Rather than emphasizing him being programmed to love, he should have been programmed to LEARN to love, or to LEARN to have emotions. As a result, it becomes difficult for the viewer to care about David's relationships with other characters. So, if we don't care about the relationship between him and his mother, we don't care about his quest to become a real boy. I don't think we are really ever satified or convinced that he TRULY loved his mother. And how could we ask the mother to care for him, when she has the same doubts. Not only that, David was imprinted to only love her. How could she love something that didn't or couldn't love her real son or her husband? The "relationship" was simply an imprint...it was superficial, resulting in the goal of David to be superficial, along with the contrived plot. What actions between the mother and artificial boy were supposed to represent real love? David constantly repeating or writing "i love you mommy?"? It doesn't matter because the film isn't concerned with this question. The film is more concerned with how badly humans treat their creations when they have feeling too. Wait, only David has feelings..... or some of them do,it appears..... well some of the older ones can feel physical pain.... well fear is imprinted on all of them. Who knows, because no consistent behavior among mechas are shown.
Or, some whould reply, "who cares?", because it was meant to be a fairy tale, right? If so, then it fails even worse. For those of you that think it can be called a fairy tale just because a virtual statue of Pinnochio's Blue Fairy talks, need to be reminded what defines a fairy tale. A fairy tale must contain the supernatural... something outside or beyond nature and beyond the physical must exist or occur. Not only is the supernatural absent in the story, but it is ridiculed. I read somewhere that Kubrick wanted it to be a fairy tale. I don't think Spielberg went that way. This is a science fiction film, with bad science. For those who believe this was a fairy tale please point out one scene or character that supports this view. Some have pointed out that at the very end, David becomes a boy because he sleeps. So suddenly magic and the supernatural plays a role? I doubt it. If this is truly what was meant, then yes you can call it a fairy tale, but a poorly written one. Even in fairy tales certain "truths" within the that fantasy world must be established early and at least foreshadowed. Nowhere is any type of magic established as "real" in the fictional world of this story. The point is i don't think Spielberg, a great storyteller, meant to show he magically became a real boy. If anything, these super advanced mechas, (who speak in a condescending way about their creators, ridiculing their superstitions) made him as close to one as possible. The problem is, do we really care at that point? All we get are characters we don't care about, and over explaining of how humans were too stupid to survive(Yet humans were smart enough to create a superior intelligence? ). Dr. Hobby is another pitiful character, almost like Dr. Frankenstein trying to play God and revive his bride, but at least Dr. Frankenstein is meant to be portrayed as mad and as one creating a freak of nature and science because of his obsession with conquering death. If you read anything about the real leading Artificial Intelligence scientists, such as Marvin Minsky, they seem to have a similar obsession. They believe the "information" or data in our brain will someday be able to be "downloaded" on to an electronic brain, and put into some kind of robot, so our bodies die, but our minds live. Scary. The aliens in Dark City believed something like this too, and it's a great scene when the main character explains that they were looking for the mind or soul of humans in the wrong place(pointing to his head), maybe they should have been looking here(pointing to his heart). Hobby seems to have a similar obsession as Frankenstein, but does Spielberg mean to portray him this way? I don't think so, especially when he shows how highly "evolved" AI's become.
In short, the movie doesn't seem to work on any level, except for having some nice effects, and some good acting performances. As SciFi, as a fairy tale, as an adventure, it fails. Those who are giving glowing praise are either in Phantom Menace like denial and they just really wanted this movie to work so they will find any redeeming qualities. Or, they are suckers for sentimental scenes, like when the mother leaves, and when they are reunited. There really is not much depth here. True questions arise, but they are a result of the interesting subject of AI as a topic, not the story itelf, and not from issues that the storyteller meant to raise. I dont' know if the storyteller knew what he wanted to do. The confusion of the story was more a reflection of the confusion of the one who wrote it, not the inability of the viewer to comprehend it.
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how about we just enjoy the fuckin movie....ahahahaha...like that could EVER happen with this crowd...gws how i love this place...even when it's SO frustrating to read some of the reviews here....i find them sooo off the mark it's unbelievable....this is a great movie....it's smarter by a long shot than anything else genre related to come out this summer...but the majority of posts have been bitchy....fine...maybe YOU like to see stuff like the crap we've been given this summer up till now, but frankly I'd rather see stuff like A.I.....sure, it may not be perfect...but it's intelligent, thought-provoking, haunting, achingly beautiful to watch, and dreamlike....what exactly are you complaining about then.???
oh yeah....well.....there's no accounting for some people's taste...hahahah
cheers folks....exador -
i no longer anticipate a great movie just because of who is involved in its creation, the great movies come out of nowhere and are a complete surprise.
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First of all, I loved the movie. There are a lot of posts here bashing the end of the movie. Whether you liked the end, or not; this ridiculing of Sberg for "ruining" or "softening" Kubrick's original vision is ridiculous. As was posted earlier, nytimes.com/library/film/071899kubrick-ai.html states that Kubrick had envisioned the AI boy existing 2000 years later in a world where only other AI's existed. He also wanted the story to be like a fairy tale, not the cold-hearted sci-fi that many are suggesting. For those wondering about alien or robot at the end, it states in this article that Kubrick envisioned robots not aliens. So quit blaming Sberg for changing or ruining Kubrick's vision.
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Jul 07, 2001 10:09:06 AM CDT
Okay, you fuckers! It's Spielberg's SOLO SCREENWRITING CREDIT s
by lenny nero
Goddamn! Get it right!
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