A.I., the screenplay, is based on a short story written thirty years ago by Brian Aldiss, entitled Super-Toys Last All Summer Long. Stanley Kubrick bought the rights to it and it became a twenty-year project of his, during which time he collaborated on it with Steven Spielberg. He wanted to produce it and Steven to direct it, but died before he could accomplish this. Spielberg kept his promise to his friend and wrote the screen play and directed it.

Set in the future when the earth's coastal cities have been submerged in the ocean because of melting ice and global warming, it is the story of a special robot boy, David, superbly played by Haley Joel Osment (Sixth Sense), created by Professor Hobby of Cybertronics to be a substitute son who would bond to his human mother with true love forever. He is abandoned by her because of a family conflict, not his fault, and, with Teddy, his Super-Toy companion, begins an odyssey of centuries in his quest for his mother, whom he was compelled to love forever and to search for, even for eternity, in order to fulfill his embedded directive.

I am not going to synopsize A.I. as it jumps from one unexpected event to another and a surprise ending. Instead, I will discuss the actors and their characters, the production as an artistic creation.

Haley keeps a marvelously naïve, sweet look on his face throughout the movie. I’m truly impressed by his acting. Frances O’Connor, his adoptive mother, Monica, is adequate in the role, as is Sam Robards, the father, and William Hurt as Professor Hobby.

In another almost disastrous encounter with humanity, David meets Gigolo Joe as they are pursued by stagers of a Flesh Fair who demolish robots for entertainment. Jude Law in his role of the robot made for love, Gigolo Joe, has me feeling as sympathetic for him as for David. I kept telling myself, “Don’t be silly, he’s just a robot” but I couldn’t get rid of the feeling. A sure indication of greatly successful writing, acting and directing.

A.I. is surrealistic, it intertwines some plausible science with implausible physical occurrences. There is a reminiscence of Kubrick's 2001 in the filmy softness of the backgrounds, the soft lighting with little splashes of brighter white light now and then. And in the eerie underwater scenes of deserted, submerged Manhattan. Spielberg defines his presence with the overly large moon looming overhead and his ability to evoke the extremity of empathy for the robot characters who want to attain the impossible--to be "real" people.

Some viewers will be unaffected. But for those who have had childhood crises involving parental loss, and who have the ability to put themselves into the picture as it unfolds, to live it internally as they watch it, it can be painful. A.I. left me feeling very unhappy and I don’t know if I could see it again. Kubrick and Spielberg are masters at getting inside us, causing us to probe our deepest feelings, crashing through our protective defenses we've erected in order to survive on Earth. It is another Spielberg-Kubrick triumph, a tribute to their great film making abilities.


Recommended:
Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older