Good science fiction on screen is very rare these days. Good science fiction allows us to explore the implications of humanity's present or future within the reframed foundation of an advanced technology or an alien environment. What we usually get on screen is bad science fiction, like Evolution, that borrows one or two science fiction devices and uses those to drive an entire movie through rather shallow plots and gee-whiz special effects and settings. Good science fiction requires tremendous imagination combined with deep insights into the human condition; qualities that are virtually impossible to find in Hollywood in this day and age. Spielberg has tremendous imagination and Kubrick had deep insights and one would think that the contributions of the two would work. Instead, A.I fails, as science fiction, from an inherent schizophrenia that originates from a lack of focus in the story and never matures into the great movie it could have been.
In this story, the polar ice caps have melted and left humanity less land to occupy and utilize. Families are limited to 1 child to prevent overcrowding. Mechas (androids) now fill many roles in society because they do not require food or real living spaces like Orgas (organics - humans). William Hurt plays Professor Allen Hobby who designs artificially intelligent machines and proposes to design a mecha that knows how to love. The idea is to build a prototype mecha child to give to families unable to have children to fill the void. Frances O'Connor and Sam Robards play Monica and Henry Swinton, respectively. Their son Martin (Jake Thomas) is currently in suspended animation, suffering from a crippling disease and the strain is beginning to tell on Monica. They are given David (Haley Joel Osment), the prototype mecha child. It is Henry's belief that David might be a way of giving Monica a second chance at a happy life and to fill the void left by their comatose son. Monica is given instructions to say seven words to David if she decides that she could love him as a son and those words will lock David's programming to love her as a mother permanently. Once this is done, however, David's programming cannot be changed, he can only be destroyed.
After some awkward moments, Monica warms up to David and after some soul-searching, says the seven words and David becomes everything that she wanted in a son. She gives him Martin's teddy bear, an old Supertoy named Teddy who's able to walk and talk (voice by Jack Angel) and who acts as a kind of Jiminy Cricket for David. Life seems to be going well for everyone.
Of course, Martin comes back from the near-dead through some miracle of medicine and now Monica has to make room for two sons in her life now. Martin realizes that David is an intruder and a competitor for the love of his mother and begins to fight David for his rightful place in the family in the way that children do - by using his older sibling influence to get David into trouble. Eventually, David, through no real fault of his own, comes close to killing Martin in an accident and Henry tells Monica to take David back to the factory where he will be destroyed. Monica, too attached to David to do such a thing, abandons him in the woods after telling him to run far away and to avoid humans. Accompanied by Teddy and later, a gigolo mecha on the lam named Joe (Jude Law) who becomes his guide into the dangerous and unpredictable world of humans, David quests to find Pinocchio's Blue Fairy who he believes will turn him into a real boy so that his mother will love him again.
The movie is visually stunning, beautiful, intelligent, and, at moments, extremely poignant. In many ways, this is a fine technical blending of Spielberg's ability to visualize and transport us to marvelous worlds through a child's eyes and Kubrick's visions and dialogues that reflect the darker sides of humanity. The biggest problem with the movie is that these two views do not harmonize well throughout the movie. If this were purely a Kubrick movie, we'd be seeing a movie about how humanity society treats its underclasses, made more stark by the humanity reflected in the mecha underclass. If this were purely a Spielberg movie, we'd see just the quest of a child puppet to become a real boy and achieve happiness. Both stories would have enough tensions and resolutions to become their own movies but melded in this chaotic fashion, we're left with more questions than answers. For example, we're given hints here and there that society is collapsing, but the contrasts between the world of the privileged and the world that is collapsing are never fully developed. The mecha appear to form a kind of societal underclass that is both irreplaceable and scorned at the same time but we never get a good sense of why the tensions between mecha and human beings exist except through a couple scenes and one exposition by a minor character. The last part of the movie is damaged in the same way that the original release of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner was harmed - through the use of a voiceover taking us into David's future and spoon-feeding us a confused and unsatisfactory ending that tries to add an optimistic note to what should have been left a dark and sad movie.
Nevertheless, the movie has some thought-provoking and lucid moments and I had no complaints about any of the technical aspects of the movie. A.I presents some of the most stunning futuristic visuals that I've seen since Dark City. While the special effects are numerous, they are used properly in the movie - supporting elements and not the main focus. As a side note, the sentient teddy bear was done so well that it gave the illusion of being a clever piece of product-placement device. All the actors do a superlative job with their material - especially Law and Osment. The music was composed by John Williams and provides a nice accompaniment for the various vistas and moods portrayed in the film.
I give A.I. a 6.493 out of 10.000 on the Good Movie Scale and a 4.010 out of 10.000 on the Bad Movie Scale - slightly imperfect numbers for a slightly imperfect movie. If you're terribly thirsty for science fiction that does more than just generate a concept for a movie or movie fare that's trying to be more than just another bad summer movie, you should go see A.I.
Our Drive-In Totals:
0 breasts
1 dead (Orga) body
359.43 dead (Mecha) bodies
Hide and Seek
1 "Spinach is Bad For You" take-home message
Teddy Bear Torture
2 moonrises
The Blue Fairy
Jane!!!
Eye for an Eye
Face lift
Hand Out
Weeping lions
E.T.
Head-twitch Activated Soundtrack
The Adventures of Robin Hood
Flesh Fair
A couple Flat Facts
Self-repairing toy
Mecha Slurry
Friendly School of Fish
Dr. Know
Coney Island Ferris Wheel
Gun Fu
Knife Fu
Chainsaw Fu
Propeller Fu
Fire Fu
Cannon Fu
Magnet Fu
Net Fu
Acid Fu
Mob Fu
Hatpin Fu
Ice Fu
Hug Fu
Good Movie Scale: 6.485 out of 10.000
Bad Movie Scale: 4.010 out of 10.000
