A.I. Review
by Tim Wick
A.I. is a tough film to review.
I think that ultimately this film that was conceived by Stanley Kubrick and
brought to the screen by Steven Spielberg (two of the best directors of the
modern era) will not be able to find an audience. There is too much Kubrick
for Spielberg fans and too much Spielberg for Kubrick fans. For those of us
with the good fortune to be both, this film may just be one of the greatest
Science Fiction films ever made.
I say it may be because I'm still not sure. What I am sure of is the fact
that almost twelve hours later, the film haunts me. Images, thoughts,
concepts and messages are clashing in my mind as I wonder if the film tried
to do too much or if I just have unrealistic expectations of what a film can
successfully address in two hours. What I do know is that the film was
enthralling for me even as other people in the theatre felt as if they had
been robbed. Perhaps they had been. They expected E.T. or 2001 and
they got A.I.
A.I. is misleadingly simple and that may be the paradox. I find parallels
between A.I., a Pinocchio like story where the "wooden boy" can never hope
to be real and Spielberg's far less compelling Hook, about the boy who
couldn't grow up, but did. In Hook, however, the fairy tale is real. In
A.I, it is a grave mistake to assume that this film is simply a sci-fi
Pinocchio where Hook was certainly a story about an old Peter Pan. The
film has much to say about humanity and about the question of why one would
want to be human. Ultimately, the humans in this film don't really make
themselves out to be the best choice.
I find myself drawn to a line uttered early in the film about the robot boy
who is the central character of the movie. "If he can learn to love, he can
also learn to hate." Because he is a robot, this is ominous. But how
ominous is it when humans are capable of hate and we don't consider sending
them to the scrap heap as soon as they show signs of developing such an
emotion.
How frightening the concept of a robot child is anyway. You can have a
child until you just don't want to take care of it any more and then just
throw it away. All of the rules of parental responsibility are mute.
Little Johnny can go ahead and play in the surf because if the undertow
pulls him out to sea, we can always just BUY a new little Johnny. Or not if
we were getting sick of him.
There is even more to the movie than this. I've only scratched the surface
of the moral and ethical issues that are tackled not one by one, but in a
sometimes confusing crush of ideas.
The flaw to this film - if there is a flaw - is that the majority of it is
so intelligent, so beautiful and so compelling. Because of that, the
moments of the film that aren't perfect, that don't quite work, are all the
more obvious. A few moments near the end (that are vintage Kubrick) didn't
quite seem right but I imagine I would hardly think of them if the rest of
the film hadn't been so nearly perfect.
I haven't really talked about the acting (extraordinary) because this is a
film that almost needs to be discussed on the metaphysical level than on a
level of production values and performances. That one can do this
indicates that the actors are doing their job so well, we are allowed to
spend the entire film deciding how we feel about what they are trying to
say.
I honestly can't say this film will work for anyone out there beyond myself.
I can see why this film has been completely dismissed by some. I've read
many positive and many negative reviews and I can't say I disagree with any
of them. That, too, is a paradox.
But this film worked for me. The goal of this movie was to make me think
about what it had to say. I have been doing so ever since I saw it.
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