Father Geek here with a big bag of reviews of AI. These are varied... some like it... some hate it... some are indifferent... check them all out, then decide how much you want to pay for that first screening. Keep in mind these people more than likely saw it FREE...

Father Geek returning to say that MORE reviews have been added at the bottom of this post... Including one that is a DIFFERENT (?) CUT OF THE FILM... Check them all out... But first here's a new one from Hercules The Strong...

1. "AI" was more fun to look at than "Phantom Menace," which is saying something. The production designers get a big A-plus-plus. The robots all looked amazing, and the visual homages to Kubrick were terrific fun.

2. The first, domestic segment, though flawed, was by far the movie's strongest. I ultimately felt more sorry for myself than for David after Monica ditched her towheaded robolad.

3. David's "brothers" (Martin and Teddy) were the film's best characters. Teddy is the anti-Jar-Jar; I could not get enough of the little bastard.

4. Why did David drag Martin underwater? What kind of half-assed inventor is Prof. Hobby?

5. I did not give two shits about Gigolo Joe, and his many bells and whistles did little to disguise his essential blandness.

6. Brendan Gleeson's moon-craft makes a great entrance, but what other use is it?

7. The Flesh Fair sequence is poorly-devised, and dull. People of the future will hire sitters and pay for parking to see acid poured on one mecha after another? Wouldn't this have been a good place to stage the best episode of "Battlebots" ever?

8. I thought Chris Rock's vocal cameo a welcome respite.

9. To paraphrase Woody Allen, if Stanley Kubrick ever saw the Dr. Know scene, he would never stop throwing up.

10. It was great seeing William Hurt as Hobby.

11. Spielberg already did the toppling ferris wheel in 1941. He must love toppling ferris wheels more than Blake Edwards loves fully-clothed people falling in swimming pools.

12. The human-free finale cribs from, and does disservice to, the finales of both "Close Encounters" and "2001."

13. Though infinitely less engaging visually, tonight's "Buffy" rerun with April the robot (a robot programmed to love!) boasted markedly stronger characterization, pacing and emotional resonance.

Hercules the Strong

Here's Sailor Poon's 5 second A.I. review...

The beginning is rushed, the ending drags, and c.g.i. steals it's integrity. High hopes dashed.

Sailor Poon

BEWARE, from here on many of these reviews contain SPOILERS...

Now here's a female perspective...

Have you seen AI yet? I caught a screening last night. I was all set to fall in love with a wonderful movie. Unfortunately, I went to AI instead of something else. The audience laughed in all the wrong places. In the poignant ending scene, a cell phone rang and no one cared. They actually enjoyed the break from the bad movie. No one cared about David, the lonely boy.

I started looking at my watch after about 45 minutes. My companions were shocked to look at theirs and realize they still had over an hour of movie left. David spends 2,000 years under water. We thought we had spent 2,000 years in our seats. Haley Joel Osmant does a wonderful job of non-emoting.

Sets looked cool.

Cyber creatures in the end were cool. But, William Hurt looks awful. The "Geppetto" sleeveless jacket in Manhattan is too much. Plus, if the society is so far advanced they can cryogenically freeze the sick child, create love Meca's and lifelike children Meca that can love back, can't they find a better alternative to wearing ties?

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Then we have this one...

Palpatine here. Well, I managed to get myself into the press screening of AI in Houston on Monday night, with the help our local film geek posse (w00t!). Anyway it was a lot of fun, and here's a moderately spoiler filled review.

Let's get this out of the way first: AI is not primarily a film of ideas. Those entering the theater looking for an intellectual rumination on the ramifications of Artificial Intelligence will be sorely dissappointed. It IS, however, what most records indicate Kubrick wanted it to be: a fairy tale. An adult fairy tale; one that is emotionally mature, touched with atmosphere, and not afraid to end on a somewhat bittersweet note. For all the talk of ideas, cynicism, or "themes of dehumanization" in Kubrick's films, his best work, to me, has always boiled down to an emotional journey. An oddyssey in which we are immersed in the experiences and psyche of a character for 2 hours and emerge with a series of questions on the topics raised. In this sense, AI is a true Kubrick film. We follow David on a simple quest to fulfill the directives of his programming: David must love, and be loved by the parent he imprints on. This is the sole purpose for which he was created, and the singular goal for which he lives his life. It is also the primary thematic concern of the film's story: the desire to love and be loved, and the emotional and ethical pathos that springs thus forth.

*Begin spoiler*

This basic moral premise is mapped out in the film's first scene, in which we are introduced to Professor Hobby (William Hurt), a scientist in the field of robotics. "Mecha", we learn, are commonplace in our new society. After the melting of the polar ice caps the earth's population took a sharp loss, and mecha were concieved and built to maintain production levels in the face of worker shortage. Professor Hobby has a different vision, and one which is seen in greater detail as the film progresses. Until this point in history, mecha had been designed for practical purposes: worker drones, sex bots, nannies, children's toys; they were machines. Hobby proposes what amounts to nothing less than the creation of a living being. A robot child that is capable of emotion, which can be provided to parents who cannot have, or have lost their children. Under his plan, the robot child would be programmed to love its human owners, thus solving one of the great emotional difficulties of parenthood. The question raised at that point by one onlooker is this: If the child is programmed to love, what happens if its human parents don't love it back? Is it abuse to create a being which is forced to devote itself with a single emotion to a being that has several? Professor Hobby provides a rather provocative answer and then we proceed to meet his men's prototype child: David.

The story is divided into three acts, and the first begins here. David has been assigned to the home of Henry (Sam Robards) and Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor), two grieving parents whose son lies in a coma after an accident. When they first meet, Henry is presenting him to Monica as a kind of distraction, like a pet, or a toy. But David doesn't make a very good pet. He has an overwhelming desire to be loved and noticed by his owners which, coupled with a strange curiosity and a kind of newborn level naievete, results in getting him into trouble. Things are further complicated when the Swinton's real son Martin (A name many of you should recognize if you played the AI Game) awakes from his coma, and returns to his family. David now has a flesh and blood rival.

It's strange just how creepy and unsettling many of these early scenes are. We, as the audience, are adjusting to David's presense along with the Swintons, but at the same time, David is adjusting to us. Sometimes this results in a laugh, sometimes in a chill, and sometimes we can't help but feel sympathy for David's situation. Everyone knows the plan isn't working, and there is a kind of foreboding dread that carries this segment of the film to its close, when David is abandoned on the side of the road, near the cybertronix building.

At this point, I will stop the plot summary as it is here where David begins his quest. All you need to know is that he's read Pinnochio and believes that if he can find the Blue Fairy, he can become a real boy and live again with the Swintons; basic fairy tale material.

I mentioned Kubrick at the start of this review, in order to bury him. Ol' Stanely's name is gonna come up a lot when talking about this movie (and rightly so, as he's mentioned extensively by Spielberg in the credits), but we shouldn't lose sight that this is Spielberg's film. I've been critical of a lot of Spielberg's choices in the last 10-15 years, and a lot of his movies as well, but I will never again doubt his technical abilities. From opening to close, frame to frame, this film is mezmorizing. It kept my interest for the entire 2 and a half hour running time, even though I had drank way too much coke before the screening began and BADLY needed a restroom break; I simply could not leave. This is definitely as restrained and cinematic a movie as I think we'll ever see him make. It's quiet, and slow moving, but there were still several moments where I was dazzled by what I saw on-screen. He's created here a living world, imaginative but real, like Blade Runner but with slightly less detail.

Emotionally, it's the most mature movie he's ever made. Usually I hate it when critics use the word mature. It's most often used to describe a director who's toned down their usual sensibilities in favor of commercial or popular success. Here, it's the exact opposite. It's the first film of Spielberg's I've seen with grown up characters, and grown up on-screen complexities that are presented in a way where he's not pandering, or calling attention to the fact that he's trying to be "serious." The characters, and the movie simply are.

Frances O' Connor gives an absolutely brilliant performance. She's the most human, compassionate character in the story, and the fact that the first act works so well is largely due to her efforts. We see in her face a conflict that is far greater than what's written in dialogue. As Monica, she is at first horrified, when her husband introduces her to David. The thought of replacing their son at all is repulsive to her, let alone with a robot. Soon however, the tables begin to turn. Monica begins to see David as human, even starts to care for him, while Henry grows increasingly creeped out, and believes David is a threat to Martin, and her. There's a tremendous weight on the poor woman's shoulder; she knows that if she rejects David, and returns him to the Cybertronix plant, they'll destroy him, but she also realizes that there is no concieveable way that he can continue to live in the house with her husband and flesh and blood son. She is the only person, in a long line of sinful parents presented in the movie, who feels any kind of responsibility for David, or relates to him as an emotional being.

William Hurt's Hobby pretends to care about David, but spends most of the time giving rambling speeches about dreams. There are some rather chilling revelations about his personal motives and actions that occur late in the second act, in one of the movie's most powerful sequences. Jude Law is an absolute show stealer as Gigolo Joe. He fades more into the background in each progressive scene, but his entrance is classic. There are a few moments of dialogue here where Joe could actually give Frank TJ Mackey a run for his money. The audience ate it up, cheering and laughing loudly. My friend and I were squirming in our seats in shock: "SPIELBERG WROTE THAT?!"

The script is excessively wordy in a few parts, and clunky near the opening, but it gathers strength and confidence as it goes along. Since a good amount of the story is visual, perhaps the best compliment I can give is to say it didn't get in the way. I don't normally like to comment on fx work in movies, but it'd be a crime not to mention the astonishing work done on this film. From the makeup job for Jude Law, to the computerized mecha, it was hard to tell what was CG and what wasn't. My jaw hit the floor the first time they powered up David's mechanized Teddy Bear. More than any other movie I've seen, "Teddy" becomes a living, breathing character, and not just a piece of CG. His movements are absolutely gorgeous technically, and they have real personality otherwise. Lord of the Rings has got a hard act to follow.

I could cover the film's technical joys all day, but the truly difficult question in watching this film (and in reviewing it) is the same one Moriarty, and many many others, have asked: does it work? I'm not sure. As a personal journey in the mind of a character who has only one desire in life, but can't achieve it, this is a haunting, and powerful film. There are many ways we could debate the pros and cons of the issues raised, but it chooses to personalize those issues, and David's story becomes the story for all AI's: past, present, and future.

On another level this is a story about parenting. I talked to Rav, Vegas, and Nordling after the showing, and Nordling said he could sum up the film's moral in three words "love your kids." The troubles that David goes through, and the troubles of the Swinton family, are all related in some way to issues of parental responsibility. Most of the humans presented here are grieving parents, and with the exception of Monica, they are all looking for a quick fix. They want to reclaim the love of their child in an everlasting, never-changing state, a "freeze frame" to use Professor Hobby's exact words. But for David to be able to give love, he has to have consciousness, and for him to have consciousness places a burden of responsibility on the humans, that most of them seek to evade. Yes, he loves, but he also wants to recieve it. He wants attention, and to feel important, just like a normal child. On this level, AI is also a tremendous success.

Where it seems to fall short however is towards the end. As I mentioned earlier, this is a fairy tale. As a fairy tale, it wants to take us to a certain place emotionally and thematically, but plot-wise, there were many maaaany contrivances forced on the story to get it where it needs to go. The end note is an honest one emotionally, but it's too somber to truly be inspiring. There is also a moment in the finale, where a character gives a speech about human beings, dreams, and consciousness, that seems to want to be a summation; a broad sweeping statement about humanity. I don't think it's inappropriate, and it's certainly not bluntly forced in like the ending of Saving Private Ryan, but at the same time it is unclear what this message means, or how it works into the story. The movie builds beautifully toward an epiphany that doesn't ever seem to come.

We are entering into an exciting time for Science Fiction and Fantasy. After putting up with a decade and a half of tongue in cheek comedies, TV show remakes, and dumb excuses to make pop culture references, finally we are seeing self contained stories, and new worlds on-screen.

AI is a fine film. It's left me with many questions about it's overall artistic success, but it's definitely one of the best sci-fi films to hit the screen in a long long time. I'm hoping that repeat viewings will clear the cobwebs for me. I brought a lot of baggage into this screening, and now that I've seen the movie once and know where it's going, I'm hoping that if I see it again I'll be witnessing a complete work.

Stayin Geeky,

Palpatine

Father Geek back with another one...

I love the internet and what it has done for movies. I love how it has become a new facet in filmmaking and the way simple movie-goers like us can now direct a movie back into the re-write stage. I love how I no longer need to trust Ebert and “fake” critics to inform me on how to spend my eight bucks but geeks like me who think, act, and talk like me. And I love how I know more about a yet-to-be-released movie than ever before. Or not, if I prefer to go into a theatre unscathed.

Such was the path I took along the A.I. journey. I decided that on this film, from day one, it was time to know nothing. And it was a commitment that almost drove me crazy.

I kept away from any news or spy reports, all reviews, and ran screaming out of the room when an AI TV spot came on. I knew a few things: Law was a gigolo, Osment was in it, and Spielberg had all his boys backing him again. From Winston to Rydstrom, from Kaminski to Kennedy, Spielberg (and Kubrick) were going to achieve something special and I wanted so much to know what was going to happen. I wanted to love this movie.

I just got back from seeing AI and I am so pissed I don't know what to do. I'm just going to eat nachos and keep typing.

I’m pissed for a lot of reasons. I’m pissed at Pearl Harbor, for one. I'm pissed because Bruckheimer went about Hollywood months before Memorial Day weekend blabbing to the world about how amazing his film was going to be and how no one had ever seen anything like it before. A few months pass and now blowing a big movie is known as “pulling a Pearl Harbor”. Then I read how Joe Johnston is not going to test JP3 because Spielberg is his producer and is so much on top of the game that he deems a test-audience unnecessary. So I speculate that if Spielberg knows what he is doing with JP3 then he must be very on top of AI as director. And since AI was shrouded in secrecy and no producers ran about singing its praises I speculated that it must be something special and very worthy of my time.

I’ll admit now that I was wrong.

I’m pissed because I feel like Spielberg sold-out by throwing in Chris and Kid Rock into a film that in no way harkens for their talents.

I’m pissed because the effects are brilliant through most of the film and then collapse at the end. I’m pissed because the story is brilliant through most of the film and then collapses at the end. I’m pissed because the film is brilliant, uh, through most of the film and then collapses at the end? What was with that ending?

AI begins with an interesting take, especially in the current wake of cloning issues and other such scientific advancements: if we could create a Mecha (mechanized human being) to love, could it be possible for an organic human being to love it in return?…..an interesting moral issue.

We then see heartwarming scenes as a husband and wife attempt to bond and find common ground with their Mecha child. One scene in particular, reminiscent of Jaws, had Osment mimicking his parents’ actions at the dinner table. Frances O’Connor, fantastic as a grieving and confused “mother”, always tries to be in control but never quite is.

But then the film begins to stray from an interesting moral tug-of-war to a futuristic fairy-tale. This is fine, but the audience never has the chance to catch up. Each scene fades out and another begins, like another chapter has been completed until we are suddenly introduced to a brilliant Jude Law halfway through the film. He is great but seems to stand out of the way of Osment’s fabulous performance.

And then that ending…

The film is a half hour too long and just when you think it’s about over another chapter begins. There is the Home Chapter, the “Flesh Fair” Chapter, the Coruscant-like Manhattan Chapter, the End, then the sequel itself. And its here that all of what AI is trying to be dissipates.

In the end, the writing, cinematography, effects, and acting are all sustained by Williams’ ongoing score that, here, attempts to squeeze out every drop of emotion. And it didn't help that the rest of the theatre was laughing.

When the film was over, I heard three people’s unwanted musings of the film before the producers had even been credited. One screamed. “HOLLYWOOD BULLLLLLSHIT!” another ditz chuckled ignorantly, “Spielberg sucks,” and another said, “I felt like I was the one who had been asleep for 2000 years.”

AI is going to fall hard this summer. Not as hard as Pearl Harbor has, mind you, but it will make a splat-like sound. It’s going to fall hard because it never knows what kind of film it’s supposed to be and never sticks to just one idea. Its once-guarded plot jumps around from one issue to the next and ends like something out of Men In Black meets The Arrival meets Mission to Mars meets a Folgers’s Coffee commercial. I only hope that when Spielberg tackles Minority Report, another futuristic film, he has better luck.

People, I am one of the biggest Spielberg fans out there but I don't think it sacrilege if I tell you to save your money and rent this sucka.

-Bimbo Baggins

email me at: Bimbo_Baggins@aintitcoolmail.com

Annnnnnnd here we go again....

I received tickets to go see a screening of A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE tonight at the Harkins Luxury 14 in Scottsdale, AZ. I've been following the reviews of A.I. on your site for a while now, so I don't know if you necessarily need or want another A.I. review.

Whatever the case, the audience was decidedly older than I expected. My friend nabbed tickets at ASU earlier in the day, so I expected a larger university crowd. Not so. I'd say the median age was in the late-40/early-50s range. The theater was packed to the gills, and we all suffered a thoroughly embarassing and unprepared trivia contest from some local radio stations at the beginning. This is precisely why I don't listen to the radio.

A.I. quickly washed away any thoughts of the entire affair.

In my opinion, there is more ingenuity, thought, and spectacle going on in A.I. than any of your TOMB RAIDERS, MUMMY RETURNS, et al. Like many of Kubrick's own films, this is a film that will gain reverence through time. This is not to say the film is flawless, but it's a fascinating commentary on humanity in the age of mechanical reproduction, as well as a triumphant marriage of effects wizardry and human actors.

After leaving the theater, my friend's first reaction was the obvious one: "Spielberg fucked it up. He fucked it up, man." I think this will be one of two prime fallacies committed by the average filmgoer: comparing it to Kubrick. Kubrick's a grand director, but even his films are wildly uneven (i.e. the second half of FULL METAL JACKET versus the first). This is not a Stanley Kubrick film, nor is it a marriage of Kubrickian vision with Spielberg -- it's a Steven Spielberg film. There are hints and ghosts of Kubrick throughout, but the late director is not a guiding force in the film. You'll find a tracking shot here or a long pull-away there, but no long corridor set pieces or obviously bizarre angles to speak of.

Sure, the film takes a saccharin turn in the final stretch, but it's a necessary one Spielberg doesn't take the obvious road at the end.

The other fallacy that weekend filmgoers will commit is bringing their children to this film. There were several kids seated near me it's disturbing to see android faces melted off with burning oil or bodies chain-sawed in half), no scene will trouble children more than David's mother abandoning him in the woods.

To echo some of the sentiments on your site lately, some of the film does indeed seem "off." It consistently fails to reach the emotional plateaus it thinks it's reaching -- most notably in the relationship between David and Gigolo Joe. Jude Law and Osment are fantastic, but their 'friendship' comes across as (pun intended) mechanical and hollow. Joe's big farewell scene is very underwhelming, if not altogether silly.

Surprisingly, the effects are fantastic without distracting from the story. Several scenes spring to mind: the opening scene where a female "mecha's" face opens to reveal the circuitry beneath; half-assembled androids scavenging for pieces in a junkheap consisting entirely of metallic body parts; David's underwater search for The Blue Fairy that takes him through the ruins of Coney Island. These scenes are staggering in their photorealism, yet somehow understated and quiet. You simply believe what you're seeing, much in the same way you forgot that the T-Rex bearing down on Goldblum & co. wasn't real.

While the film itself is a bit emotionally disjointed, Spielberg effectively fractures the "Pinocchio" story, rewiring it into a hybrid territory owned and explored by the likes of Donna Haraway and William Gibson. It is a film consisting of material pieces and moments, assembled and reconstituted into the shape of a fairy tale. In a summer movie season populated with shallowness and artifice, A.I. is absolutely the most genuine of them all.

Call me "Lot 49er"

Then there's this one from Alexander Panic...

It's Pinocchio, on acid and CGI. I don't want to give away more than that, because, unlike most pre-packaged Hollywood blockbusters, A. I. has some big surprises in store, even for the most jaded movie patron. Oh, and I should probably put your disparaging mind at ease by mentioning that it is NOTHING like Bicentennial Man.

So, how is it? (Get to the point, already.)

Ever seen one of those Conan O'Brien skits, the ones where he takes two celebrity couples, and through the magic of computer, shows them what their child would look like, if they chose to breed? Since first hearing that Steven Spielberg was taking over Stanley Kubrick's film, A. I., after Kubrick kicked the celluloid bucket, I thought the film would be about as cute as one of those digital-mongoloid freak infants Conan shows weekly on his show. To my surprise, Spielberg took Kubrick's vision, twisted in some of his own ideas, and created an amalgam of a movie that should satisfy the most discriminating of tastes.

This isn't just one film that you're seeing. This isn't just one director, or one directorial style being displayed in front of your starving eyes. Although Spielberg gets most of the credit (Kubrick is relegated to "concept"), this is obviously more Stanley's film than it is Steven's. Sure, it moves at a near breakneck pace that Stanley wouldn't hear of, during his lifetime, but Steven slows things down just enough to remind you that this isn't really his baby, after-all. This is Kubrick's movie; Spielberg is merely bringing it to the big screen. There are the trademark Spielberg moments scattered throughout; but instead of wrecking the film that Kubrick would have made, they actually accentuate what was obviously Kubrick's idea of where the film should have gone.

Steven Spielberg does a wonderful job contrasting the darker vision Kubrick had of A. I. with his own lighter, fairy-tale version of how he feels the film should play. After a few mushy E. T. type moments, the viewer is literally jolted into a world that could be created by no one other than the wonderful Stanley Kubrick. This isn't A Clockwork Orange, but it damn well isn't Hook, either. A lot of the parents in the theater found the film, and I quote, "disturbing" and, "not for kids at all." I don't agree with those comments, but I do think that children should definitely be forewarned that this isn't the sweet little fable they've been promised in the television commercials. Sure, David the machine (played by Haley Joel Osment) wants to become a boy, which is all heartwarming, and junk, but he has a hell of a lot of very frightening (especially for the under 13 gang) set of obstacles to go through, if he ever hopes to attain his dreams. This is a hard PG-13, and that's just the way Kubrick would have wanted it.

Everything "Kubrick" in the film is spectacular. The way David is befriended by Gigolo Joel (Jude Law, in his best role to date), a machine made for no reason other than to fuck and suck the ladies in a seedy part of the country that would put any red light district to shame. Everything "Spielberg" in the film is slightly shaky, but luckily there isn't much of it. The Spielberg scene that annoyed me the most was with "Dr. Know." The entire section seemed robbed from Spielberg's original Jurassic Park, when Dr. Hammond talks to himself during the film presentation played to his visitors in hopes of explaining how his team was able to extract dinosaur DNA from mosquitoes.

Still, I'm making double DD cups out of single A's. Spielberg took a "concept" by Stanley Kubrick and essentially created a Stanley Kubrick film. Sure, if Kubrick had made it, it would be far more intense, a lot more boring (in a good way), and the cutesy stuff would have been cut, but Spielberg was extremely daring with the pacing and attitude of the film. Not to mention, I don't think as big of an audience would have rushed to the theater to see another film as wonderfully slow-moving as Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut.

I honestly believe Stanley would have been proud of the picture Steven created, warts and all. I hope America, and the world, feels the same way. As Stanley would have wanted it, this film does get slow moving (think the last 15 minutes of Kubrick's 2001), and I'm afraid Attention Deficit Disordered America will turn their backs on A. I., looking for another hyper-spastic pile of crap like Tomb Raider.

I didn't think we'd ever get to see another big budget movie like A. I. again. I hope that it's a huge success, so we can see more films, in the "event" arena, that slow down long enough for a plot and character development. I'm getting too old to watch another great movie become a financial disaster. Yes, A. I. is a great movie. Kubrick and Spielberg produced the perfect baby; not even Conan, and his wonder-computer, could have seen that one coming.

What are you selling us here???

I noticed "Samsung." I can't remember seeing any others, but I'm sure they were there. This film really grabbed me, and I sorta lost myself in it. It was hard to pick out product placements.

If it won an Oscar, what would it be?

"Best attempt at recreating a Stanley Kubrick film" - A. I.

Agree? Disagree? Email me at coerced@rea-alp.com

Here's a new one from the New York Premiere...

Here's yet another review for you regarding "A.I."

I saw the world premiere of "A.I." last night at NY's Ziegfeld--big Steve even introduced the picture, claiming the last time he premiered a film in NY was for "Close Encounters."

Without getting into a lot of plot (the rest of your reviewers are spoiling it for everyone), the film works on many levels but also fails pretty consistently. The effects and production design are first rate--the various robot characters seemlessly blend into the story and you forget you're watching effects wizardy. The sets are very impressive, however a select few seem to be poor man's versions of "Blade Runner," and this doesn't say much for "A.I," considering Ridley Scott achieved the same atmosphere 20 years ago.

Performanes are strong, particularly Osment and Law. However I do recommend Osment to begin pursuing other roles, as he's pretty much played all of his cards, especially after "Pay if Forward" and "Sixth Sense." Law is a breath of fresh air as Gigolo Joe and his makeup work is astounding.

Movie has a chance to end several different times, and it's very obvious where Kubrick would have ended the film (about 15 minutes before Spielberg does). Movie runs out of gas and overstays its welcome, and many exiting moviegoers were saying the same thing (unless if Spielberg was in the lobby, when then they were then saying how wonderful it was).

The film is definitely worth seeing, but be advised that it's being slightly mismarketed. This is dark, disturbing and sad subject matter, and mainstream America may tune in this wknd, but don't expect WB and Dreamworks to be counting the dollars all summer long.

Best character of the movie summer is "Teddy," the robotic Teddy Bear. Great character.

Annnnd here's a small town America look at the flick... Beware SPOILERS...

Even though i know you've already posted a whole bunch of interviews and stuff i just felt like maybe i'd like to give you my take as a small town Indiana boy who got to see the film through a local radio station screening. When i got to the theater it was about a half hour before show time but the theater was already jammed with the local Nap town crowd. We were treated to the new Harry Potter trailer which i really thought was ROW-DEE, much better than the first trailer which i thought was super lame and i was about to send a mail bomb to chris columbus via Owl Mail or whatever its called in the Potter books. There were some great scenes in the castle and Alan Rickman just looks killer, he is proffessor snape to a tee. Some person who worked for the radio station came down the aisle with a speaker phone and said that the AI film had been damaged and that they would be showing Ishtar instead. I honestly thought there was going to be a riot, luckily things calmed down when people realized he was joking.

That's when the lights dimmed.

We were then treated to one of the most confusing pieces of cinema in recent memory, I loved it, I hated it, it was ok. These were the feelings coursing through my mind when i walked out of the film.

I won't bother you with the run-down of the plot since i'm sure you already know them, its just that i'm so frustrated by what could have been. Spielberg Fu*&%d this movie up so badly its hard for me to imagine. Now i know you've had a bunch of people write you and talk about how great spielberg did because the visuals and the technology were soooooo goooooood, and they're right they are. What you haven't heard is what the quality of the directing was and let me tell you Harry, it really isn't anything to write home about. The three acts in this film are so discombobulated and out of synch that (even though you're going to love it) you can't help but wonder what the hell spielberg was thinking when he wrote some of this stuff. The first act is strong and lays a great groundwork for the film.

But after his mom leaves him in the woods everything falls apart. I can see them dumping the bad robot stuff off in the middle of nowhere (i guess) but what the hell with the moon\balloon that contains a crazy machine hating circuis owning nutty bar. The entire scene with the motorcycles with the wolf's heads.....WOLF'S HEADS!!!! WHY THE HELL DO THE MOTORCYCLES HAVE BIG BEAST HEADS WITH TEETH??!!???? It looks so rediculous, its like Spielberg was sitting at his table and thinks....."ok this is the future, guys on motorcycles, wolfs heads, shiny armor.....oh yeah that's money" sorry spielberg it was just lame. The whole flesh fair thing was probably the most ludicrous, show off set piece i've ever seen in my life it was shameless.

Oh yeah and the camerawork in this movie is some of the most juvenile stuff i've ever seen. A director is supossed to use symbolism to provoke a deeper understanding of the film, but it must be done with subtlety. There are some shots in this movie that just made me want to puke. EX. the family is sitting at the table. the shot is from an overhead perspective and is shot through a donut shaped lamp, it gives the impression that there is a barrier between the family and David. NO CRAP SPIELBERG, THAT WOULDNT BE CAUSE HE'S A ROBOT RIGHT??? DUH!!! I felt like i was being treated like an idiot with some of the directing, but i digress.

So the flesh fair thing just doesn't work, and then Chris Rock shows up, i almost walked out when i heard his whiny voice. The only saving grace of the film is the acting by Osment and Law (Law is truly hilarious in this role playing a cross between james bond and fred astaire).

OH YEAH!! the chick who plays the female pleasure robot is SOOOOOOOO DAMN HOT!!!! I would see the movie again just to see her walk by.

Anyway so the movie sort of peters on and David finds the answer to this blue fairy business (find blue fairy = become a real boy) in this booth where an animated Robin Williams voices an over the top CGI Albert Einstein (i kid you not).

David finds the blue fairy beneath the sea and you think the movies over but NOOOOOOOOOOOO, I can just see the Dreamworks meeting: Katz: "Uhhh so how'd you guys wanna end this movie???" Geffen: "Dude, check this out, we gotta have some aliens, aliens are cash money!" Speilberg: "Hell yah big G, check this out, we have him stay down there for 2000 years, aliens come, they're all smart and whatnot, then they give david one more day with his mom, badda bing badda bang, williams music does the rest, we bring home the oscar!!" Katz and Geffen: " SPEILBERG, you've done it again!!!!"

Again, nice try, the 2,000 year thing is the most rediculous plot point i've ever seen, everyone in the theater was laughing, it was just so heinously stupid, the aliens are silly tall beings who (when they place there hands on David) have his memories flash on their faces like little TV screens. I actually saw people leaving the theater.

The movie ended and as I was walking out there was only one thought on my mind and that was Stanley K. He would have H-A-T-E-D this movie, it falls short and wimps out in every possible respect, it doesn't have the grit or honesty of a really well-told dark fairy tale (that's all this really is). Kubrik would have thought this film to be light and fluffy, and poorly thought out. It just makes me sad to think this will be the last film that will have his name attached to it. Oh well c'est la vie.

Peach Out

Here's another from that NY Premiere...

I just got back from an A.I. screening in NY and all I can say is, "Save Your Money". I must admit that I was all pumped up to see this flick. It was my must see film of the summer. After sitting through over 2 1/2 hours of slop, the only way I could be any more unhappy is if I had to shell out 10 bucks to see it.

Speilberg has officially lost it. The guy is so rich and pampered and surrounded by yes-men that he has totally lost touch. If A.I. were written and directed by Joe Schmoe, it would be laughed out of the theatre and UNIVERSALLY panned by critics. Unfortunately, critics and people in general don't have the balls and self-confidence to criticize Speilberg, let alone Speilberg AND Kubrick.

Well let me step forward and be on record as saying that this movie sucks!! It is even funnier how pathetic people are. When in the film, I could see everyone rustling in their chairs and constantly checking their watches. EVERYONE wanted to leave. However, when the lights went up, those same people who kept checking their watches like they were late for a date with Claudia Schiffer, were the same people to heap gallons of praise on the movie as soon as the credits rolled.

Ralph Waldo Emerson summed it up best, "Fame is proof that people are gullible."

Wolfgang out.....

Father Geek back with another mostly positive look, but beware spoilers...

I have been fascinated by some of the sharp divisions of opinion surrounding AI as reviews (official and un-) have come out in the past few weeks. Today, my wife Sandra, our 18-year-old daughter Crystal, and I all went to see the 12:00 noon showing at the Uptown here in DC (enormous screen, great theatre). I believe that Crys was entertained but not particularly moved. Sandra and I--who between us have 9 kids from our separate prior marriages--both felt as though we had had a dentist with sharp, tiny, hand-held instruments working on our hearts for 2 1/2 hours, with pauses to let us recover, only to dig in again. Why the difference? Because we're parents and she's not. And therein, I think, lies much of the great divide.

AI is not hard SF. It is a cautionary horror story cum fairy tale cum myth, probably one of the best examples since Mary Shelley penned _Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus_. It takes a simple premise--what if we could teach a machine to love as a child loves, to think as a child thinks, and to want to be loved as a child is loved?--and carries it through to some excruciating, non-obvious and unflinching consequences that, I suspect, resonate primarily with parents who have had children of that age.

As with Frankenstein, the core of AI involved hubris, temptation, rejection, and consequences. Hubris was the unthinking arrogance of Dr. Hobby and associates in tampering with the ecology of family and love without due regard for the unintended consequences--set, ironically, against a backdrop of melted icecaps (frankly, _my_ first clue this wasn't hard SF) and other unintended consequences of meddling with the physical ecology at large.

Temptation was Monica, watching her flesh-and-blood son Martin in cryonics for five years, not knowing whether a cure would ever be found for him (another fairy tale/myth motif), now being confronted with a machine, called David, that looks like a little boy, that--if and when she says the magic words--will fall eternally in love with her. Monica has a void inside which remains gaping and unhealed because of Martin's suspension between life and death, which is what makes her temptation so real. In far too many movies and novels, the key temptation is so stupid and and the consequences so obvious that I lose most or all sympathy for the character (e.g., King's _Pet Sematary_). What made this movie so painful for me was how realistic I felt the temptation was. If I had one child, frozen, near death, with no clear prospect of ever having him/her back and no prospect of ever having another--yes, I might be tempted, and I think my wife even more so, to have something like David to fill that void, and we would stumble into the trap without realizing what we've done.

Rejection comes with the realization of the artificial, unnatural aspect of the relationship. Children grow; they mature (usually); there is always a bittersweet aspect to losing the simple, passionate love of a child, especially once they become brain-dead adolescents ;-), but one wishes children to grow and go out on their own. Kubrick/Spielberg first carefully lay out the slowly-unfolding hell of having a child-like automaton with real feelings stuck at that particular emotional age, then accelerate and compound that hell by bringing back the real child, warts and all. Can one love a machine when one's own flesh and blood is at hand? What are our loyalties, our instincts? Martin's and David's reactions to each other are very believable (speaking particularly as someone who has had experience merging two sets of kids together into one family), as are frankly the different reactions to the situation between and her husband Henry (with whom, remember, David has _not_ bonded; a classic parent/step-parent divide, one with strong Oedipal/Freudian overtones). Martin is less pleasant, less pure in his love, less physically perfect, less lovable--but his is Monica and Henry's flesh, their progeny; having nearly lost him once, can they reject him in favor of something that runs off electric current, something manufactured? What would that say about them as humans, as parents? Yet David really loves Monica, and she has to choose between him and the rest of her very-human family.

Whatever the twists and turns of the future projected, the emotional consequences for all involved, but particularly for David, are as inexorable as they are logical. For me, one of the most haunting lines of the film is when Monica abandons David in the forest (another classic fairy tale touch), shouting cautions even as she does so, then pauses and says"I'm sorry I never told you about the world." There's a deep, wrenching stab at any parent's heart, capturing the twin heartbreaks of forcing a child out into the world, away from the safety comfort of a parent's arms (with a loss of security) and into all the pain and cruelty and tragedy that the child is likely unprepared for.

David then embarks on a classic, almost Campbellian fairy tale quest, complete with faithful sidekick (Teddy) and rogue knight (Joe). He's off to see the wizard (Dr. Know), to win the Sphinx-like riddling challenge and find out what he needs to know to become a real boy so that Monica will love him. But unlike the comforting, Disneyized fairy tales we've come to accept, this one holds to the hard truth--there is no blue fairy, David will never become a real boy, and Monica will never love him the way he loves her, the way he so desperately wants to be loved, as someone unique and irreplaceable--and this is where it is most wrenching. David's hopes are raised to their highest peak by the mysterious message in the Dr. Know booth and its literal unfolding as he and Joe travel to the 'ends of the earth'--and then they are utterly smashed as he finds what lies at the end of his quest. His homicidal (robocidal?) rage at finding another, duplicate David is chilling and utterly consistent, calling to mind Henry's seemingly-overblown worry much earlier in the film that "If he [David] is capable of love, then he is also capable of hate." And then all his hopes are utterly crushed as he discovers that he himself is merely a simulacrum of Hobby's dead son David, and that he is being mass produced for human consumption. It leads to two attempts at suicide, one out of despair, and one based on obsession with his goal leading to indifference to everything else, trapped in a dark prison of his own making.

Some have objected to the third part of the movie, yet I think it was very much keeping in spirit with the old-style fairy tales and myths. It has the irony of robot survival and human extinction (brought on, with further irony, by a profound ice age). It has the resurrection motif, with acceptance into the company of gods or near-gods, not as an equal, but as an honored icon (much as Greek gods elevating heroic mortals to Olympus or into the constellations). And, as gods, they grant not what David wants but what they can--a single day with Monica (Clarke's third law should be enough to deal with any quibble about DNA), with no competition from Dad or Martin or from the world at all. Again the Oedipal/Freudian overtones may seem a bit blatant, but it's still utterly true to life, for a child of that emotional age, as to what heaven would be. And David's choice--that he would rather have that one day, with the increased sense of irrevocable loss afterwards, than not to have it at all--goes to the heart of vast numbers of myths and tales about what is so essentially human. Indeed, David for all intents and purposes now _is_ the human race. And as the day ends and Monica passes away, David--for the first time in his 2000-year existence--sleeps and dreams.

But does he wake?

Bruce F. Webster (bwebster@bfwa.com) Washington, DC

Here's one that may tell us alot about what's going on with this movie, Its been recut (?) from the one most people have been seeing...

At the advance screening of A.I. tonight at Ontario Mills, in Ontario, California... the narration that people were complaining about at screenings was GONE! I have to say that this was an important choice for the mood of the film. The film I saw (half of.. more on that later) tonight was moody, creepy and much less Spielbergian... more Kubrickian. This was the first time I had ever seen 30 people jump out of their seats because a character laughs. This audience was in love with this version of the film....

at least the first hour of it...

After focus problems during the opening credits, we were treated to the antics of what appeared to be a first time projectionist. The film was badly matted, out of focus and off frame. When they got it back in frame it was matted wrong and we got to see William Hurt from the neck down during his entire opening monologue. We were treated to the bottom half of what appeared to be a very jarring special effect when I finally walked to the back of the cinema and knocked on the glass so loudly that I startled a few people in the audience. At this point all seemed well.

Then, just a few minutes after the flesh fair, when Joe and David speak to Dr Know, they started playing the last reel of the film... only backward and UPSIDE DOWN!!!! I'd say that took talent. So, here I am, witness to one of the most creepy, moving, visually stunning and challenging first halves of any film I have ever seen.

I find someone from Warner's outside the theatre along with 1 or 2 other people who realized they were watching the end backward and upside down, and she was bummed. Very nice lady who I guess assumed they would start the film over. They did not. They gave us all 2 passes and apologised.

All of this after looking forward to this film since before my marriage, nearly a decade. My heart is a little broken, but I'll survive. Should I be thankful for the tickets? Respectfully, yes. But I think that should be the minimum to expect.

I really feel AMC dropped the ball with this one, and should have found a way. Yes, I am aware that re-splicing would have taken a while. Most people would have left. But the ones that stayed should have been treated to a showing. Instead, we get to come back tomorrow and wait in lines. After all, this isn't an advance screening of the latest screwball comedy. This is the legacy of Kubrick. And we are his fans. Sad. Do you remember when the people who ran theatres loved film? Now it's a summer job, even for management. Sad. All of this after praising AMC for having the most comfortable theatres in town, and the best audio. I hope they can make up for it, but I doubt they will.

ILK...

P.S. The nice Warner lady gave everyone A.I. (the game) posters.

Sooooooo, There you have it, a real mixed bag, ultimately you'll have to see it and makeup your own mind. Father Geek suggests a Matinee for the first viewing... then... if you feel its worth it, another screening at whatever price you feel justified paying... personally ol' Father Geek will be paying the cheap price for his second look, and my first peek was for free...