"A.I. Artificial Intelligence" begins with a narrator telling us how in the distant future the polar ice caps have melted causing the coastal cities to be flooded. Many humans suffered and starved from this tragedy and machines were developed to aid in our survival. Prof. Hobby (William Hurt) the leader of a team of scientists at Cybertronics, a "Mecha" or robot designing company, proposes the development of a mecha child unlike anything the world has ever seen. A child who is almost human with the ability to give true love. When he states his proposal one of his colleagues poses the truthful question that if a machine can be created to love will it be loved in return?
The couple profiled and selected to test the prototype are Henry and Monica Swinton (Sam Robards and Frances O'Connor). They are coping with the fact that their birth child Martin (Jake Thomas) has had to be placed in suspended animation due to a life threatening illness. Henry is hopeful that a cure can be found for his son but he knows that time is running out and his wife is sinking deeper into despair. To help Monica cope Henry accepts the prototype of the mecha child David (Haley Joel Osment). Spielberg effectively presents David to us and Monica for the first time as a distant silhouette surrounded by blinding white light. He looks almost like the space travelers in "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind" and even though David is no extra-terrestrial he is alien. Monica immediately rejects the friendly David and the idea of a replacement for her son who is not even dead. She refuses to even look at him even though he appears real in her eyes or through abstraction. Through her rejection David treats Monica with a friendly attitude and eventually he begins to crack her tough exterior. She begins to place him in her son's bed, read stories to him at night and even present him with her son's super-toy Teddy. Teddy voiced by Jack Angel will probably be the most memorable character in "A.I" a true marvel of f/x wizardry and heart. He has the gruff voice of a chain smoker and the wisdom of experience, Teddy knows he is just a teddy bear robot and unlike David he knows his limitations.
As Monica grows increasingly close to David she decides to do something that will affect his life forever. David comes with instructions for a code that will permanently imprint his love for Monica. Once imprinted David cannot be altered and if Monica and Henry decide to send him back to Cybertronics he cannot be re-sold to another family and will have to be destroyed. Osment's subtle change in demeanor is a wonderous moment in the film as Monica reads the seven-word code activating his love. The slight turn of his head and shift of his eyes as he asks he "What were those words Mommy?" is an example of the talent of this gifted actor. He carries this entire film on his shoulders and does this difficult task with such grace for someone so young. I could not take my eyes off him for the entire film. The tone of the film begins to change as Martin returns home to find that he has a new brother that looks real but is different. I could feel myself becoming uncomfortable as I watched Martin turn green from envy as he begins to manipulate David. David just wants to fit in and be part of the family as he does what Martin tells him will make "Mommy love him more". As David's various attempts begin to backfire he becomes a threat to Martin and the family. Henry sees David as just a toy for his wife, a dangerous toy that could hurt them and he also poses an interesting question: "If he has developed the power to love then maybe he can also develop the power to hate." The threat of David increases as he accidentally causes harm to Martin at his pool party.
Frances O'Connor is the emotional backbone of this entire first segment of the film. As Monica she knows that David is just a machine but doesn't have the courage to love or defend him. She is beside herself with grief when she decides to take the naive David back to Cybertronics because she knows the situations that have developed are the faults of her and not David. She knows he will love her until the end of his existence but doesn't know how she can love a machine no matter how real he seems. Monica is even too much of a coward to take David back to Cybertronics and end his misery so she leaves him in the woods nearby. The moment when David realizes she is abandoning he and Teddy is the most disturbing in the film. This is why I don't recomend young parents taking their children to see "A.I” They may not understand Monica's actions and will only see David as Haley Joel Osment and not a robot being left behind. "I'll love you better,” he screams as she throws him off of her and races away to her car. Seeing David reflected in the car's rearview mirror and getting increasingly smaller left me with the sense of abandonment I feared in my childhood.
The first act of "A.I" is unlike anything Spielberg has done before. The opening of the film and the introduction of David seem very happy with that "Spielbergian" view that we are accustomed to, but when Martin returns home and begins his manipulation, the tone gets darker and darker. The film starts to take us in to those subjects which Kubrick himself loved to explore, the faults of humans and cynicism. The sense of dread becomes even more obvious as David sits on the floor at the other side of Martin's room as Monica read "Pinocchio" to Martin. The idea of Monica reading the story was Martin's because he wanted to mock David. He hoped that David would see the similarities between himself and Pinocchio and feel uncomfortable. What he didn't realize is that the story would inspire David in his quest to become a real boy and introduce him to the "Blue Fairy".
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the world", Monica says to David when she abandons him. What David will soon discover is how sick and twisted that real world is. By opening the next segment with the introduction of "Gigolo Joe" (Jude Law) the film goes on a slight tangent but also shows us that world that Monica was speaking of. Law's single-minded performance is brilliant as a mecha who acts within the limits of his programming and even though he feels no emotion he "enjoys" his job. The small plot of Joe being framed for murder is a little ridiculous and it would have been better if it was used as a back-story instead of being quickly presented to us. When Joe journeys to the woods outside Cybertronics he discovers David and many old and damaged mechas shifting through the used parts that the company dumps in piles. These woods reminded me of the dark and spooky forests we read about in fairytales. They are interrupted by Lord Johnson-Johnson (Brendan Gleason) and his dirigible shaped as the moon. The "hounds" or bikers dressed like extras from "Starlight Express" that Johnson uses to round up the mechas are not impressive at all. Some have called this the worst action sequence that Spielberg has directed but it's not an action sequence. It isn't intended to be exciting but disturbing and a tool to get us to the next setting: the Flesh Fair.
The Flesh Fair is like a carnival/monster truck rally full of rock bands, neon lights and hundred of "orgas" (humans) screaming for the entertaining destruction of mechas. This is unlike anything Spielberg has shot before and a smile came across my face because he surprised me. The appearance of the rock band "The Ministry" was a welcome surprise as well. Seeing the robots tortured and destroyed reminded me of "BattleBots" on television. Mechas have acid poured on them, are shot out of cannons into spinning propeller blades and are cut down by chainsaw wielding motorcycle riders. This is the futuristic version of "American Gladiators". Behind it all the mechas held in the cage with the frightened David wait for their destruction. A robot cook, janitor, nanny and many others have outlived their usefulness and are fated to be destroyed for our amusement. They have all acted within the limits of their programming including the nanny who asks David if he needs someone to care for him and gives him a smile as acid is poured over her head. It's disturbing to see machines, even thought they are emotionless, pleading for their lives. They were designed by us, served us faithfully and here we are destroying them with glee. This isn't Spielberg territory anymore. This is pure Kubrick. The people come to see mechas destroyed because it is in their nature. Humans love destruction and seeing a machine destroyed is equally gratifying. To them these are just machines who don't feel anything, but when David cries out for help with the emotion of a real boy the audience refuses to accept he is not real and begin to riot against the owner. It is never said why Lord Johnson-Johnson hates machines and it doesn't need to be. David lives in a world where most humans abuse the machines so everything does not need to be spelled out for us. This film is about David not Lord Johnson-Johnson.
When David escapes the Flesh Fair he discovers that he and Teddy have a new companion: Gigolo Joe. Joe seems to be fascinated with David's quest to find the Blue Fairy and become a real boy and agrees to help (and maybe meet a few customers along the way.) According to Joe the one who can answer David's question is Dr. Know and he is in Rouge City. The freeways leading to Rouge City tower over the coast and stretch a long way like the seven-mile bridge in the Florida Keys. The opening of the tunnel at the end of the freeway is in the form of an abstract human head and mouth literally taking David into the belly of the beast. The city itself is like the Devil's amusement park full of sex parlors gambling and plenty of sin. The visual effects in this area of the film are stunning yet the could have been better. It seems like every film after 1982 that has a dark futuristic city will be endlessly compared to "Blade Runner" and that isn't fair. I had that feeling that I was seeing the actors on soundstages with blue screen, which probably isn't far from the truth. I just couldn't fully believe that they were actually in this setting, but maybe that was intended because Rouge City seems to have a dreamy yet nightmarish quality. The purple neon everywhere made me think of Emerald City gone corrupt and commercialized. This setting could have been spun off into a separate film. I would've loved to see how Kubrick could have taken us into the shadows and dark corners of this town, deep into the filth and debauchery that could only be spawned by humans.
The character of the fortuneteller Dr. Know is not one I was comfortable with. He looked like a buffoon version of Albert Einstein with the voice of Robin Williams. I felt like Spielberg was giving me the short film about Dinosaur DNA that he used in "Jurassic Park". He is only a device to advance the plot and I am glad that his appearance was short. The information he provides David will take him to the end of the world. "No mecha has ever returned from there," Joe tells David. "It even has a name, Manhattan." Joe hopes that this quest will give David the solace that he can never have in his own life. He knows the limitations of his programming and accepts his role in life. "They hate us you know, the humans," he says to David. "They made us too smart, too quick and too many." "We are suffering for the mistakes they made because when the end comes all that will be left is us." David refuses to give up his dream and proceeds to take Joe and Teddy to the flooded city of Manhattan to find Prof. Hobby and become real. The design of this location is impressive but I wondered why would Hobby and his team of scientists reside in a city that is flooded over fifty stories high? Was the real estate that cheap or did they want some sort of seclusion? The city itself has no life and appears abandoned.
Just as Henry predicted, David develops the feeling of hate as he smashes the head off the duplicate of himself that he finds. He wants to be unique and fears that his mommy may love this duplicate as well. It's confusing when Hobby tells David that they have been monitoring his journey and tells him he is a real boy. He also disappears from the film entirely when he goes to get David's "other mothers and fathers". David is based on Hobby's late son but is he devoted to David and his individuality or does he have a hidden agenda. It all becomes clear to David when he finds the many lifeless duplicates of himself in the doctor's lab. An eerie feeling washed over me as I saw David peering through the eye sockets of his double and walking amongst the labeled boxes the mecha children would be packaged in. "At last-a love of your own," the boxes read with the outlines of a male or female: David is just a new toy, another product of Cybertronics and nothing more. This is enough for him to dive off the building and into the ocean.
When David and Joe part company I thought that Joe's exit was a little silly. We don't know what will happen to him as he is captured by the mecha retrieval squad but have an idea that Joe's number is up and termination is next for him. His exit is abrupt and unsatisfying but it also takes us to David and Teddy's journey to a statue of the Blue Fairy at a Coney Island amusement ride. David and Teddy become trapped under the Ferris Wheel inside the amphibicopter for 2000 years. It's unfortunate that many audiences find this situation implausible and unsatisfactory. This is sort of the fairytale ending I thought the film was going to give us and I would have been satisfied. But, 2000 years later David and Teddy are discovered by the latest inhabitants of the planet. Many may confuse these beings to be extra-terrestrials but according to Brian Aldiss's original stories and treatments developed by Kubrick they are in fact a race of machines who have taken over the planet. I saw this as Spielberg's biggest mistake with the film because the audience is confused and the visual f/x are poor. The machines look like a cheap rip-off of the "Close Encounter" and "Mission To Mars" aliens but just as Gigolo Joe predicted the human race perished during an ice age and machines survived to dominate the planet. The history of the human race has been lost and these beings hope to learn more by studying David's mind and giving him the happiness he seeks. "A.I." once again flows into Spielberg territory as David meets a simulation of the Blue Fairy created by the machines with the voice of Meryl Streep. The film's ending is bittersweet as David is temporarily united with a recreation of his mother, but he gets the happiness and love he has always wanted allowing him to sleep and have real dreams.
"Artificial Intelligence" is not Steven Spielberg's attempt to copy Stanley Kubrick, but an interpretation of his style. Spielberg began his work from the numerous storyboards and rough treatments that Kubrick assembled. Spielberg has utilized many of Kubrick's techniques without betraying his own style. What we get is a hybrid of these two masters. I don't think anything like this has ever been attempted before and if it has it wasn't done so successfully. This film begins with the familiar Spielberg tone but it seemed a little bit off. Something was different, not normal and that's a good thing. I could see things were headed in a different direction. I didn't know where this direction was going but my brain woke up and my interest increased. Ideas were often the stars of Kubrick's films. They also followed the same theme of the human condition and our faults. What "A.I." is ultimately about is how selfish and imperfect we are as human beings. The character of David is meant to suffer to show us the cruelty and hideous nature we all have beneath our skin.
Everything from Janusz Kaminski's photography to John Williams's score worked for me. Williams has created one of his best scores in a long time, one that is subdued and effective. I was pleased that the score was effectively placed in the background and did not overwhelm the story. The film wasn't filled with wall-to-wall orchestral music and hearing Williams try new ideas such as electronic instruments was a joy. I don't think he's been so unconventional with his scores since he wrote a small jazz piece for "Hook" and that didn't work too well. The advertising of "A.I." recalls "E.T." but this aint no "E.T." People see the name Steven Spielberg with the PG-13 rating and automatically think it's a children's film. I predict that this film will have a big box office opening and then unfortunately attendance will die down after a few weeks. Audiences today are looking for the next mindless entertainment and most will probably reject this film. Negative word of mouth is a death sentence to films and I'm sure this on will generate a lot. On the other hand it could increase interest in the film...hopefully. Why can't audiences try to sit through something a little unconventional today? The intention of this film is to make you think. You can't have everything spelled out for you. Too many movies today are being dumbed down. At the premiere of this film Spielberg said he just wanted to convey Kubrick's vision as best he could. "Just sit back and have an experience.” he said and that's just what he's given us. Spielberg and Kubrick have given me an experience that will stay with me for some time to come. Thanks guys
�Cirrus, Socrates, Particle, Decibel, Hurricane, Dolphin, Tulip, Monica, David, Monica.� These are the words that imprint David�s unconditional love onto his adaptive organic mother in Steven Spielberg�s �A.I. Artificial Intelligence.� The question of what defines a human being or a sentient being is one of the most often debated subjects in science fiction and sci-fi. Whether it is the desire of a robot to be more human as is the case in Christopher Columbus� big screen adaptation of Science Fiction Grand Master Isaac Asimov�s �The Positronic Man,� which was released theatrically as �Bicentennial Man� or character of �Data� in �Star Trek: The Next Generation� and the feature film�s quest to be more human, a character who Gene Roddenberry invented as a nod to Asimov who served as a consultant on �Star Trek: The Motion Picture,� we have seen robots go through great lengths in literature, films, and television programs to reach the nearly impossible goal of transcending their mechanical nature to that of a more biological human nature. Sometimes the robots are defined by their memories, as is the case when Harrison Ford�s character of �Rick Deckard� discovers that the fugitive replicants carry family photographs in an effort to be more human and later discovers that manufactured memories is what Tyrell discovered made a replicant easier to control as is the case with the character of Rachel (Sean Young) in Ridley Scott�s classic �Blade Runner,� which was inspired by the work of Philip K. Dick. In fact if one reads or sees the dramatizations that have been developed from Philip K. Dick stories, they will notice the same question being asked over and over again in various ways. �Am I human?� �What defines being human?� Just watch �Total Recall� and the short-lived prequel television series �Total Recall 2070� and also check out �Screamers� as well as �Imposter� and the undeniable subtext is clear in all of these films. Perhaps it was this question that prompted Mr. Spielberg�s interest enough to direct a feature film adaptation of �Minority Report,� which like the other films I have mentioned above are all based in part on stories written by Philip K. Dick.
Another interesting example of artificial intelligence exists within the �Star Wars Saga,� where droids are treated more or less as second class citizens yet the characters of �R2D2� and �C3PO� are at times more human in their expression of feelings than the human characters in the story. With the exception of �Monica� in �A.I. Artificial Intelligence� most of the other human characters that walk in and out of David�s odyssey to become a �real boy� are emotional types from the jealous biological son of Monica �Martin� and her increasingly cold hearted husband, who was the one who should have been held responsible for returning David to Cybertronics since he bought David home to begin with without consulting his wife, the human characters range from the resentful to the regretful, but we are never allowed to bond as viewers to any human character in the story. This is a story of robots and robots are the ones who inherit the earth by the end of this fable as the next step in biological and mechanical evolution.
This realization is set up and consistently reinforced throughout the film from the very beginning after we hear the voice over that in a few sentences tells the viewer what kind of world we are about to enter, we see the statue silhouetted behind the window that is the logo for Cybertronics, the company that develops the prototype David robot. Then when we first see David enter the Swinton home the lighting around him makes him look like one of the future A.I. beings that we see in the film�s epilogue. David�s earliest memory is the very logo of Cybertronics, which Martin mistakes as a peacock after at his request, David draws him a picture of his earliest memory. Later when David reaches Dr. Hobby at the Cybertronics� headquarters in the now flooded city of Manhattan, he enters a room filled with a virtual assembly line of David robots in various stages of completion. The shot where David looks out through the eyeholes of the faceplate of a David model robot is followed by the matching point of view shot is the �Cybertronics� statue just as we saw in the film�s prologue. Therefore by the time David encounters the A.I. beings at the New York City excavation site two thousand years later, it is reasonable to assume that the look of these translucent biomechanical beings is not unlike the Cybertronics logo statue. Since the image was in David�s mind before he even knew exactly what it was, it is also reasonable to assume that the robots of the future also have a mechanical collective unconscious, which in turn would prompt robots making robots in their own image to use that anthropomorphic template as the basis for their evolution long after humans are extinct. That is why David is so important to them. He functioned when humans still inhabited the earth and as a result he is their bridge to understanding humanity better as well as the missing link between biological organisms and artificial organisms.
Another important element in the film is the use of circles in many of the key visual compositions. Whenever David is in a frame surrounded by organic beings, he is always separated by some sort of circular barrier in the composition of the camera frame. When David sits at the dinner table with the Swintons we see an overhead three-shot that clearly has David separated by the circular light fixture overhead. The Swintons are outside the circle while David is always at the center and cut off from them. Another example is a comparison of two different shots. There is a scene when David is being tucked into bed by Monica where we can clearly see within the circles that makeup the interior of the bed chamber David is at the center while Monica is reaching over to tuck him in, but her body language is stiff as if she is still uncomfortable with their newly adapted mechanical son. Besides reaching in to tuck David under the covers, Monica never shares the inner circle where David resides. However when she is reading the conclusion of �Pinocchio� to her biological son Martin, they both share the center circle, while David is completely cut off and is at the side of the room, not even within range the of the outer circles that serve as the backlight to Martin�s sleeping camber like bed.
The moon on the rise represents danger so whenever a robot character is backlit by moonlight, such as Gigolo Joe when we first see the artificial moon balloon rise, he is alone and does not even share a frame with one of his own kind because in this instance even the artificial moon balloon Lord Johnson-Johnson uses to trap rogue robots for the flesh fair is a mechanical device being used against other mechanical devices. The outfits worn by the �hounds� that ride after the robots make the humans riding the futuristic motorbikes look more mechanical than their prey. One robot refers to the sadistic cruelty performed upon the robots by their organic counterparts as �The right of blood and flesh� while the humans called it �A celebration of life.� If life exists upon the consumption of lives then the reason why robots were created goes beyond the obvious labor needs one would expect. It is exactly as Gigolo Joe explains it to David after they have seen Dr. Know in Rogue City. �They hate us you know. The humans. They�ll stop at nothing.� He then adds �They made us too smart, too quick, too many so we suffer for their mistakes because when the end comes all that will be left is us.� Robots are the scapegoat for the failures of humans to adapt to their changing environment.
The only shot where David actually shares any intimate tactile contact with another being in a circular composition is not with any human character in the film, not even Monica. The shot is when in the far future the �Specialist,� as he is referred to in the screenplay and who has served as the narrator of this film, takes David by the hand and together they sit before a circular window while the Specialist explains to David what he and his fellow robots had discovered about human beings from cloning and reanimating them.
There is no way that David can ever physically transcend his mechanical body and so it is stylistically appropriately that he never shares a circle with a biological human being. What David does and what the robots throughout the film display in various forms is the capacity to leap beyond the simple reactionary response of their basic programming. Robots may not plea for their lives, but they certainly will do as much as they can to keep from being demolished at a flesh fair. On the DVD Steven Spielberg mentions the amazing leap forward Gigolo Joe makes in assisting David on his quest not because Rouge City is where he could pick up business and not because David offers him a chance to escape the police when they come to arrest him for the murder of one of his clients, which he did not commit. Everyone who encounters David in the story recognizes him as being unique. They may not like him, but they never deny that he is something different from anything they have encountered before. Joe�s assistance to David is the clearest example of a robot taking the initiative to move beyond his programming. His last words �I am. I was� are two of the most powerful character defining pieces of dialogue because it shows that even without the advanced programming within David, robots are becoming sentient beings on their own. Another example is when the Specialist mentions to David how he envied the human spirit. Envy is an emotional response, which ultimately shows that in two thousand years of mechanical evolution, robots may have become more like humans in spirit then we will ever know.
Interesting to note that the robots never question the ethics of reanimating humans and it is obvious that only through trial and error are they able to warn David not to let Monica know where she is and how she came to be because it will make her afraid and ruin everything. This bookend is the counterpart to the ethical question raised to William Hurt�s �Dr. Hobby� regarding the creation of a mechanical child capable of love. I often think that it would be ironic if the first reanimated human the future A.I. encountered were �Dr. Hobby.�
Watch the DVD for yourself and see what I mean. The circular patterns are frequently used as a motif on nearly all of the interactive menus and there are other examples I left out like the circular reflection of the open mouth that separates David from the others in the car visually when they enter Rouge City or the fact that David is being studied from a circular observation deck by the future �A.I.� The film is so layered that whether or not it is chance, purposeful, or intuition, �A.I. Artificial Intelligence� is film that demands repeated viewings and I�m sure yields plenty of surprises I have not mentioned here nor have I yet to discover.
As much as it is a story about �the right of blood and electricity� it is also a story of the spirit that in the end unites the �A.I.� as much as it unites humanity for better or for worse.
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