ADDITIONAL MATERIAL ADDED!!!! Harry here, David Ansen of NEWSWEEK has just had his review posted HERE. Before you go, realize that this is a traditional critic that finds it necessary to describe the entire structure and layout of the film... As a result, the spoilers are quite intense... HOWEVER, it is the most insightful look yet. It left Ansen pondering the ending and what he was meant to feel, whether or not that was Spielberg or Kubrick that made him feel that... He felt that the film came unraveled in the third act, but apparently in a engrossing manner... And he is left pondering what it all means about love. I'M SO THERE!!!
Hey folks, Harry here... We've had fairly ecstatic reviews with little to no spoilers thus far. Happy reviews, reviews that bought the story, that struggled with the tale... that left them pondering the meaning of it all. Well.... Shen, the reviewer below, saw the film, but never bought into it. He saw it all as obvious and trite. A cinematic case of monkey see and monkey do. He didn't buy the vision of the future and felt the film was cruel and unusually upsetting. This is a reaction.... and some of you may come away from this film the same way. I don't believe A.I. will be for everyone... but it could be for me or you... THERE ARE TONS AND TONS OF SPOILERS HERE.... and no safety net at all... If you want to stay pure.... go away now!
Here's my review for A.I. Sorry, it has Spoilers through out. After reading the other two reviews, I had to write in.
The more I think about this movie, the more offended I get.
I knew it was coming, like a speeding train rushing at me, I could hear it in the distance. And yet, like a fool, I refused to leap from the tracks.
A.I. is the near legendary last and unfinished project by late Director Stanley Kubrick, based on the short story: "Supertoys Last All Summer". A project Kubrick worked on, but mostly put aside for years waiting for technology to reach a level he found acceptable. Too bad for us, Kubrick went belly up before that time, and even worse Steven Speilberg is the one who picked up the project (for Stanley's memory and legacy, of course), turning what was to be the last milestone in Kubrick's career into a bloated corporate whore after a night of sailors on shore leave, after months a'sea.
So what we get is a mixture of Stanley Kubrick, Steven Speilberg, and Steven Speilberg imitating Stanley Kubrick. The obvious punchline being that; the movie is filled with long, slow, drawn out moments of silence, puncuated by pretentious melodrama.
So what's it about? Ever heard of Pinocchio? There you go, but with a boy robot and minus the cool part with the Whale. It all takes place in a world where the ice caps have melted, overpopulation is a problem, smart robots called Mecchas service our every need, and Haley Joel Osmont is a one of a kind prototype robot of a dillusional, autistic 9 year old boy. Autistic or retarded, it was hard to tell. Anyway, he wants to be a real boy and goes searching for the Blue Fairy with a Super Teddy Ruxpen teddy bear (Actually the ONLY truly likable character in the movie), and a robot male gigalo, named Gigalo Joe (Jude Law). The movie dares to ask the question: Just how much Psychological torment can a thinking child robot stand before it snaps? The movie does raise another interesting question, though. Such as; in Man's continuing quest for knowledge and technological advancement, shouldn't we stop to consider the ethics and consequences of our actions? A question, interestingly enough, that could also be applied to the movie itself.
This is yet another, in a long line, of vintage Speilberg movies. Which means a long EVENT MOTION PICTURE, sprinkled with a few moments of inspired directing, buried under a mountainous pile of heavy handed is-this-not-deep, are-you-not-moved-goddammit crappy film making. Steven Speilberg obviously set out to make a GREAT movie, but its just not. Instead he decides to spend the movie telling you its a great movie, because theres certainly nothing there with which to show you. An easier way would have been to just have a scrolling message board along the bottom:
FEEL HIS PAIN! WEEP, PUNY HUMANS! WEEP AT THE PATHOS, THE INHUMANITY OF MAN, THE CRUELTY OF WHICH YOU, THE HUMAN RACE IS CAPABLE OF! FOR SHAME! WEEP, DAMN YOU! O' SHEEP, ARE YOU NOT MOVED?
Between the wild Mecchas in the woods, the designs stolen almost as a whole from a Terry Gilliam flick, Speilberg's cheap imitation of how he believes Kubrick would have made it, and the fact that Speilberg obviously HATES children on some level, because he relentlessly tortures the main character again and again, I was just left with this sickened, creepy feeling. It's like watching someone push over an old lady and then they kick her when she tries to get up, and then they come running around a corner and hit her with a garbage can when she thinks shes okay, and then back over her in their car. Speilberg's God complex is more evident here than anywhere else. His Ego is like a sweaty fat guy rubbing your neck the entire time. For God's sake, People, someone stop him! As a friend commented in horror: "He even unsexyed Jude Law. Damn him! I'm going to write a letter!"
The designs are what get me the most. Neon? Vinyl suits? Three Wheeled cars? Obviously this is a tangent future that never grew out of the 80s. I can't stand "future" movies with such stupid crap like this, stuff that makes no sense, but some moron out there decides its futuristic. Why is there motorcycle guys wearing vests with Neon lights on them? Vests with Neon Lights on them? Why? Simple, Because Its The Future! Which is, of course, a fantastic Neon World. Its as bad as the movies where the future people all wear shiny one piece jumpsuits. At what point in time do we all decide to do that? The three wheel car isn't even a future innovation, in fact the first one was road tested in 1915 or so, called the Dymaxion car, designed by Buckminster Fuller (the geodesic dome guy), and while it did get something crazy, like 70 miles to the gallon, the fact that it flipped, exploded and killed its drivers during the prototype phase pretty much canned the project.
Another thing I didn't get. There's a "flesh fair", a name that makes no sense, A WWF type carnival where they destroy unwanted Mecchas that they caught running wild in the woods, by shooting them out of cannons, and pouring acid on them, and all the Mecchas run and are afraid of capture, but why? Haley is the only one with emotions, the SPECIAL prototype that has emotions built in, so that means the others don't. So why are they running? What are they afraid of? Why would getting torn apart bother them? THEY HAVE NO EMOTIONS! THEY'RE MACHINES! That question was conveniently ignored. Like how if Haley tries to eat anything, he gets all screwed up, Spinach clogging up in his circuits at one point, but being underwater is no problem at all. And like saving Private Ryan, where the interperter kid kills the Nazi guy at the end, we're left with another confusing character point. Haley meets another version of himself, and kills it. Not just kills it, but mutilates it, I mean goes totally bug shit, knocks its head off, beats it to death kills it. So, if he's supposed to be real and have feelings, than that means all of his other selves are real and have feelings, as well. So that makes him a murderer, and a psychotic one at that. Are we supposed to be sympathetic? Are we supposed to be so behind his single minded, obsessive quest, so supportive in his hunt to become a real boy, that we can excuse his bludgeoning of a creation, his mirror image, a creation that the entire movie has spent trying to get us to accept as real, because he is under some stress? Scared? What the hell is that about?
And then it just drags on. This was Speilberg's first script since Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and hopefully it will be his last. His modern pinocchio tale reaches a point where he realized he had painted himself into a corner, and simply didn't know how to end it. There are at least two false end spots (ala The Saint). So whats his solution? Well, after the second optional stopping point (the point where I felt all hope die), its suddenly 2000 years later, and the Aliens from Mission to Mars show up (The cheapest aliens ever, I guess they blew too much of the budget on all that Neon.) and excavate him out from under the several thousand feet of ice he and most of New Yorks buildings survived under. (I don't even want to start thinking about the problems with having a second Ice Age, and the Empire State Building's chances against an encrouching Glacier.) Speilberg then straps you into your seats for another half an hour and sticks needles under your fingernails.
The Only part I felt some apprehension is when Teddy was almost broken, like I said, he is the most likable one. Rest assured, Teddy survives to the end, but afterwards, I think I felt the most sorry for him, stuck with this whiny kid for Eternity. The only other good part was when they launched the Chris Rock Meccha out of a cannon, through a ring of fire, and into a giant fan.
Oh my god, I'm drained. Jesus Christ. What pretentious crap. What tedious drivel. This movie wasn't bad like Battlefield Earth, where it was simply amazing, or The Mummy Returns, where it was simply crap. No this is a bad on a whole new, creepy level.
Basically my prediction is that, this is a movie everyone is going to love, and as a result, cause me to lose even more faith in Humanity.
I officially detest Steven Speilberg now,
Shen
