Directed by:  Steven Spielberg
Written by:  Ian Watson, Steven Spielberg
Adapted from the short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” by:  Brian Aldiss
Concept by:  Stanley Kubrick
Starring:  Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor, William Hurt, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas, and the voices of Ben Kingsley and Robin Williams 
 

July 08, 2001

         David’s love is real, but he is not.  A.I. was a Stanley Kubrick film, but it is not.
         When the late great legendary director Stanley Kubrick past away two years ago, his rumored collaborator on A.I., Steven Spielberg, took over.  This is good, and it is bad.  It’s good because A.I. was actually made.  It was bad because some choices were made that I don’t believe Kubrick would have made. 
         A.I. follows a newly developed robot, a boy named David.  David is the first robot programmed to love.  His parents take him in because their real son is sick in a coma, and in this cold future, population control doesn’t allow them to have another child. 
         Just when David is beginning to fit in with his parents, their real son returns home.  Problems arise that eventually force David’s mother to abandon him in a forest near where he was made. 
         This scene is one of the most emotionally intense scenes.  Like in previous Kubrick films from Barry Lyndon to The Shining, child abandonment issues are raised.  David’s search for his mother’s love drives him for the rest of the film.  He believes that if he returns as a real boy, like in the Pinocchio story his mother read him, she will love him.
         The dramatic irony is apparent as we the audience know that he cannot become a real boy, yet David is programmed as a child, so he thinks like one.  He believes in the fairy tale.
         The biggest fault of the film is that last twenty-five minutes is too much of a fairy tale, too Spielberg.  The vision and direction of the first three quarters of the film is very Kubrick, very cold.  According to Gregory Feeley of the New York Times, Kubrick planned on the span in time.  The final scene though would have been much darker.  Spielberg tries to end it like a storybook.
         Despite this, as well as a little copied effect from the likes of Mission to Mars meets Terminator 2 from the team over at ILM (George Lucas’s Industrial Light & Magic), A.I. is a thoroughly enjoyable film.  There is a point where the film should end, and I like to think of it as ending there.  Jude Law as Gigolo Joe adds a nice presence to the film.  And the futuristic look of the film is astounding…especially the modern day WWF event. 

Feeley, Gregory.  “The Masterpiece a Master Couldn’t Get Right.” The New York Times.  http://www.nytimes.com/library/film/071899kubrick-ai.html.

Also check out this link for info on A.I. and Kubrick in general: http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index2.html
 

Alternative Recommendations:  The Shining, Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange (all d: Kubrick), E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind (both d: Spielberg), The Sixth Sense (s: Osment)

-Reviewed in Theater
 
 

Best Cinematography Janusz Kaminski	Best Art Direction/Set Design Richard L. Johnson et al./Rick Carter, Nancy Haigh
Best Supporting Actress Frances O'Connor	Best Special Effects