Summer Cinema: ‘A.I.’
“A.I.” was the late Stanley Kubrick’s last project he was developing before his death. Reportedly, he and Steven Spielberg (who went on to finish the project as director, producer and screen writer) would fax pictures and ideas back and forth to each other from fax machines in their bedrooms.
Although the finished product is most definitely a Steven Spielberg film (complete with struggles between parents and their feelings for their children and a child character who ends up on a life changing quest) Kubrick’s hand is visible from beyond the grave shaping the world and characters of this futuristic sci-fi adventure. Kubrick’s inspiration for the film was “Super Toys Last All Summer Long,” a science fiction short story by Brian Aldiss first published in Harper’s Bazaar in 1969.
Reviews for “A.I.” have been mixed. It seems that people either really enjoy the movie or are appalled by its sometimes dark nature. I happen to belong to the former group. “A.I.” should be hailed on the first science fiction movie since “2001: A Space Odyssey” to actually achieve the grandeur and mystery of an epic.
The film tells the story of the first mecca (mechanical person aka artificial intelligence) child that is programed to love and its effects on the humans who come to love or hate him as the case may be. Haley Joel Osmet plays the robot (David) who is given to a Henry and Monica as a trial. The couple’s real son is locked in a cryogenic chamber waiting for a cure to some unnamed disease. When Monica becomes emotionally attached to David she imprints his circuits to love her. Soon after, the couple’s real son, Martin, is cured and brought back to the family.
Martin’s ensuing jealousy and Henry’s worry for his family’s safety cause the couple to abandon David in the woods. After meeting up with Joe, a robot gigolo played by Jude Law and surviving a flesh fair, David sets out on a quest to find the Blue Fairy (from Pinnochio) so she can turn him into a real boy so his mommy will love him as much as Martin.
The flesh fair provides the truly dark aspects of the film as human onlookers help to violently destroy the meccas by acid, fire and explosion. If Osmet’s character is the Spielbergian side of the film, the flesh fair, Joe Gigolo and the sexually charged Rouge City are definitely the guiding of Kubrick’s hand.
Visually the film is stunning. Spielberg uses camera angles and lighting to accentuate every scene. Whether it is showing the tension at a dinner table by shooting through the center of the light above the table or showing conflict by shooting David’s face through a mask, Spielberg shows us why he is deserving of the title master storyteller.
Overall, “A.I.” is a visual smorgasboard of images leading to the question of whether man can ever replace man by machine. However, the film’s bleak vision of the future is overshadowed by the message that when motivated by love, anything is possible. The film may not be appropraite for small children, but it a must see.
Rating: A-