A.I. Artificial Intelligence

I bought this on DVD many years ago, convinced I had never seen it. I finally got around to watching it, and it wasn’t until I reached the robot demolition circus (words I bet I have never seen in the same sentence before) that I realized I had watched this movie before. That is a memorable sequence. In many respects I thought the movie was well made: the special effects, the deep thinking behind the plot, and the writing was mostly good. It almost felt like it was covering too much ground, and I felt there were a few lapses. I will mention only one, and try not to give anything away. There…

The movie was actually pretty good. The ending sucked to me though.

With their son "Martin" supposedly out for the count, "Henry" (Sam Robards) procures a solution for his wife "Monica" (Frances O'Connor) in the form of "David" (Haley Joel Osment). He is a state of the art android. Not robotic in function like previous models, but an adaptive model that can learn to love, to feel, to be... Initially very apprehensive, she gradually bonds with the curious and friendly young man just as readily as dad "Henry" starts not to. Then, re-enter "Martin" (Jake Thomas) who turns out to be a rather malevolent and jealous lad who, with his fellow human friends,…

The coincidence of the release year matching 2001: A Space Odyssey feels almost too on-the-nose, especially given that this was originally Stanley Kubrick's project before his death, eventually passed to Steven Spielberg. One wonders if Kubrick would have brought the clarity of vision that this film desperately needed. The screenplay wanders terribly, unable to decide what it wants to be or say. Is this a meditation on what it means to be human? A cautionary tale about creating beings capable of love we cannot return? A Pinocchio story? A post-apocalyptic fable? The film tries to be all of…