A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O’Connor, William Hurt, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas, Brendan Gleeson, Michael Berresse, (voices) Jack Angel, Robin Williams, Ben Kingsley, Meryl Streep. [PG-13]

Thought-provoking science fiction story about a high-tech robotic boy named David (Osment) that’s been programmed to love its appointed “mother” (O’Connor). This first act is loosely based on Brian Aldiss’ short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long,” but it’s only the beginning, as a forlorn turn of fate sends David on a tumultuous odyssey to try and become a real boy, just like the little wooden puppet in the book “Pinnochio.” Ambitious project fused the ideas and sensibilities of Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick (who worked on the project on-and-off for over a decade), a mixture that doesn’t always gel—though Spielberg maintains that Kubrick was the one contributing the sentimental material that Spielberg is often accused of over-supplying—yet it brings strange and discomforting notions to the surface to be debated; e.g., since being programmed to love is not the same as actual love, is it a lesser or greater tragedy since “real love” can be overcome while code instructions cannot? Contains moments of breathless beauty and unsettling anxiety, and proposals that can be debated for hours, but the narrative and emotional cues are sometimes muddled, and the filmmakers undermine what should have been a hauntingly lonely finale by going on for another twenty minutes after hurtling two thousand years into the future for a protracted and unsatisfying epilogue. The polished visual effects, Janusz Kamiński’s harshly-lit photography, and John Williams’ arresting score are all worthy of praise.

78/100