A.I. Artificial Intelligence

That’s how I felt after sitting through SEVEN FUCKING COMMERCIALS BEFORE THE MOVIE!!!!! You know, if they’re going to do that they should lower the damn prices. They’re obviously getting paid pretty damn handsomely for their captive audience. I think they could afford to go back down to at least $7. But let’s get to this movie.

Two of my favorite directors are working together on this one and it shows all over the place. Stanley Kubrick had been working on this one for years before he died. Now Steven Spielberg has picked up the reigns and tried to finish it the way he thinks Kubrick would have wanted it done.

For the most part I think he succeeded. Yes, this is Kubrick filtered through Spielberg’s eyes, but it’s also Spielberg filtered through Kubrick’s eyes.

But let’s talk a little bit about story before we get into semantics. Not too much, though. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.

David (Haley Joel Osment) is an android made to look like an 11 year old boy. His creator, Professor Hobby (William Hurt), made him to love unconditionally. He’s delivered to two people who aren’t allowed to or can’t have their own children, they say a few magic words to him and suddenly they are Mommy and Daddy and David will love them forever.

To try David out Prof. Hobby sends him home with Henry (Jason Robards from Fandango and American Beauty) and Monica (Frances O’Connor from Bedazzled and John Woo’s upcoming Windtalkers). Their son, Martin (Jake Thomas from The Cell), is in the deep freeze waiting for a cure for whatever it is that he has. Monica forms a bond with the mecca-boy that Henry is a little worried about.

Then things get weird when Martin comes out of his coma and comes home to find a new kid in his place. What would any normal kid do? He torments David until it looks like David is a danger to his family.

Now David has to make it alone in a hard, prejudiced world that would sometimes rather see his artificial bones boiled under hot acid than help him become a real boy, which is what he thinks will make his Mommy love him and let him come back home.

Now, let’s talk about the differences in Kubrick and Spielberg. There are some who think that everything Kubrick touched was gold. I think even die-hard fans of Spielberg (including myself) know that he’s fouled up a few times. 1941 is, of course, the worst offender, but there are others along the way.

Kubrick tended to be very anti-technology. Anytime a high-tech thing came along in his films it was usually something evil, like HAL 9000 or the desensitizer in A Clockwork Orange or the Doomsday Machine. Spielberg, on the other hand, tends to love technology. Ok, so it screws up occasionally (Jurassic Park), but, for the most part, it’s a good thing. It makes life better and easier for everyone.

Kubrick was a very cold filmmaker. His characters were only there to tell the story. Did we really care that much about Dave in 2001? Not really. Yeah, we wanted him to destroy HAL, but that was just because the computer was so evil. Spielberg, though, specializes in making us care about the strangest characters. He made us care about an ugly little alien (most of us, anyway…I never really cared about the movie itself), a salty old sea captain, a German sweat shop owner and even a guy who is willing to give up his family for a bunch of little aliens with big heads. His films are warm and touching, even when there’s a lot of action going on around the characters.

Which brings us to another difference. Spielberg is, for the most part, an action director. He makes popcorn movies with brains. (Usually. Lost World was a little short on the brains department.) When he makes a serious film it still has its share of emotional ups and downs. Kubrick never really cared much for action. Spartacus is about as action packed as it got for him, and that was his least favorite film. Even Full Metal Jacket was pretty devoid of action, and it took place during a war! His films are intellectual exercises that are sometimes impenetrable.

So how do they work together? Very well, actually. Spielberg seems to understand exactly what Kubrick wanted for this film. There are, of course, times when Spielberg took over for Stan’s spirit, but if the movie wasn’t as cold as Kubrick’s other films, it was certainly coolish.

The only time that I winced was one scene near the end that involved David finally meeting a character he had been looking for for a long time. I can’t say too much because it may give away too much, but it’s a VERY badly written scene that everyone in the audience actually laughed at. When EVERYONE realizes that a scene is bad, you know it’s bad.

Spielberg certainly took over at the end when the movie takes a turn for the, well, different. He wrote the screenplay (for the first time since Close Encounters) and you can tell that he’s still preoccupied with the same things he was way back when. Interesting ending if not what we expected from the rest of the movie.

This is a fairy tale, though. And it ends much like a fairy tale would. Yes, there are references to Pinocchio all through the film, but there are other tales thrown in, too. A little bit of Sleeping Beauty, Hansel And Gretel and a lot of The Wizard Of Oz. Not to mention a LOT of Blade Runner.

But what’s it really about? Oh, you could say that it was about the prejudices of man against machine. Or maybe a lobby against artificial intelligence. (But, since this is a Spielberg/Kubrick film, we’re not really sure if it’s anti or pro A.I.) But what I really think it’s about is a search for love. The one thing that is driving David through all of his travails is his undying love for his Mommy and his need for her to love him back. It’s something that we all must do, so we can all relate to David’s plight. That is the core of the film and what ties all of us with him. That’s what makes it such a bitter-sweet film.

And some of what scares us about David. He does some pretty disturbing things in order to make sure that he is the apple of Mommy’s eye. But he’s not the bad guy here. He never does anything to hurt anyone, it’s just a thought that occurs to us throughout the film. What would he do? How far would he go?

And the fact that we still like this kid is due mostly to the amazing performance by Haley Joel. This kid blows me away everytime I see him. It’s kind of scary that a 12 year old kid can get this into this complex of a character. He proved himself in The Sixth Sense, but this goes well beyond even that.

It just serves as more proof that Haley is, in fact, an android built by Hollywood to prove that they can do things without real actors. Jude Law was actually their first experiment, but he hasn’t really done any box office. They’re both here, though, looking very artificial in ways that only they can.

And while we’re on the subject of Jude, his character is kind of annoying. He plays a love-bot, or something like that. (THIS is what scares me about artificial intelligence. Women may find out that we real men aren’t all we’re cracked up to be and then only robots will get laid. Imagine. A woman can deal with the crap that a real man gives her or she can get a six foot vibrator that can think. And our species dies. Scary.)

Anyway, Jude’s character is the only truly annoying character in the entire film. Even the little stuffed bear that follows David around (like Jiminey Cricket) isn’t as annoying…even though it looks like an Ewok.

But I digress.

This is actually a pretty amazing film. Yeah, it does have a similar story to Bicentennial Man, but it’s so much better, deeper and more interesting than that piece of dreck. It goes on a little too long and, after two hour plus of Kubrickian glee, we have an ending that kind of sticks it’s head out and says, “Hey! I’m Steve! Remember me?”

But I was able to forgive its flaws because the flaws were even pretty damn good. (Except for that one scene.) I will definitely want to see this one again and hopefully get even more out of it.

Listen closely (or don’t, because they’re pretty obvious) for cameos by Chris Rock and Robin Williams.