A.I.
Starring: Haley Joel Osment
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Distributed by: Dreamworks

Date: 7/6/01
By: Rice

    It is my belief that true artificial intelligence, computers that are capable of dynamic learning like humans being are, is one of the few impossibilities that mankind will ever encounter and never solve. Why? Because we're not God. The way our mind works is so unique and complex that nothing short of a miracle of miracles can explain why humans exist. There's no way we can reproduce the incredible way we are designed. Indulge in my digression for a second here.

    From Earth's natural resources and the universe's natural chemical/physical laws (which is a miracle in itself), we became capable of the civilization that we know of today. In essence, from nothing, we built everything in about 5,000 years or so. Let me put that in perspective for you: the Earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old. So that means in 0.0001% of the time that Earth has existed, we've created an intricate world filled with sophisticated irrigation, artificial light, and sprawling metropolises wired with millions of miles of cables that literally put the entire globe at our fingertips. We can, using radio waves, broadcast LIVE coverage of humans landing on the friggin' Moon for crying out loud!!

Toto... we ain't in Kansas no more!

    And the most intelligent species next to homo sapiens? I guess it's a toss-up between dolphins or chimps, but it doesn't really matter, because they are so primitive that they cannot even understand the simplest of logic. We get Shamu to jump through hoops and we exclaim Orca's are so smart! The most retarded human baby child in history is infinitely more intelligent than the smartest animal that has ever lived.

    Can you honestly believe we are capable of building something as miraculous as ourselves? Of all the advancements and inventions I mentioned, we still cannot understand how our own body works!! Modern medicine and all its glory is barely capable of patching up a few things here and there. And that is why I also believe there are no other intelligent species like us in the rest of the universe. Sure, maybe some exotic plants in the Alpha quadrant or something, but nothing near the level of our own sophistication. I can go on and on, but then I'd never get to the movie review, so I'll curb it here. You may brand me as a megalomaniac for the human race, but if you stop and examine the facts, you'll see that I'm not being overzealous, but instead logical.

Spielberg's lighting techniques work brilliantly in A.I.

    A.I. is the brainchild of the late Stanley Kubrick, who had worked on it for 15 years before passing it on to Spielberg. Word on the street has it that it was Kubrick's final obsession that plagued him for almost two decades. I can see why. The premise of the movie sets itself up in a way so that the conclusion cannot possibly be contrived. It would take a genius storyteller to resolve it in a satisfactory manner. Although I respect Steven Spielberg as one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, I'm sorry to say even he could not complete A.I.... I doubt anyone alive could have.

    The story is set up as thus: In the future, the polar icecaps will have all melted due to global warming. However, human beings, being the ever resourceful species that we are, still prosper despite large costal cities such as New York get buried in umpteen gallons of the ocean. Yeah, Waterworld was stupid. A little flooding ain't gonna send us back to the stone age. Anyways, a big reason for our prosperity (especially the U.S.), is the invention of artificial intelligence just in the nick of time. Robo servants like Rosie from The Jetsons have become a reality. Mecha (short for mechanical robot) servants of all kind work for us now. Waiters, secretaries, nannies, even prostitutes. The next step? To invent a mecha that is capable of love, i.e. the love children have for their parents.

Despite the jolly mood of this photo, it was actually a somewhat creepy scene.

    I'm going to reveal more plot than I usually do for this review because I need it for discussion material later. If you object, you're probably not the kind that reads reviews before watching movies anyway. Okay, so a professor with an extreme case of God-complex creates the first prototype for a substitute kid mecha named David. The lucky winners that get to beta-test David is a couple, Monica and Henry, traumatized by their only son turning into a vegetable and is barely kept alive via cryogenetic freezing. One day, Henry brings back David to their plush apartment to show Monica that although it's impossible to replace your own child, it may ease the pain somewhat to have an adopted kid, albeit of the mecha type. Of course, Monica completely freaks and is torn between the longing and the seeming immoral-ness of it all. The good news is that David won't love until he's programmed, so until then, he's fully refundable.

    After spending a couple days with David, Monica gives in to the longing and permanently imprints him as her child. From thereon out, David's programmed Oedipal-esque obsession kicks into high gear and does every possible thing to try to get his new mom to love him more and more. And what do you know, right after that, Monica and Henry's real son wakes up from his coma. At first, they try to co-exist, but a sequence of events occur that forces them to return David. Unfortunately, since he's already been imprinted to love, he's gotta be sent to the grinder. On the day of the appointment with Dr. Kevorkian, Monica's heart melts and instead ditches him in the nearby forest. In one of the most provocative scenes in A.I., David begs and begs his mom not to leave him behind, but when the inevitable occured, he recalls the story of Pinocchio she read to him and resolves to find the Blue Fairy so he can become a real organic boy. Then, he believed, Monica will truly love him as he loves her.

You'd think robots would have no problem bending these flimsy prison bars open.

    From then on, we follow David's quest for human mortality. Herein is where A.I. shoots itself in the foot and the plot stumbles towards an awkward ending. You see, we know David will never be a true human, so how is the storyline going to resolve itself in a realistic manner, yet still retain the movie magic that rakes in audiences by the millions? Unless it introduces a revolutionary new way twist in film history, we know the finale's going to be either bad, cheesy, or downright strange no matter what. While I'm not insane enough yet to be giving away endings, I will say that sadly it does fit into one of the aforementioned ending categories. As a side note, people who enjoyed 2001: A Space Odyssey need not apply. If you actually liked that borefest, you'll have a field day with A.I., and I salute you for being more open minded than I am.

    Everything else about A.I. I can gush about, and I fully expect it to make a couple of appearences at the next Oscars. For one, it's the most graphically intense portrayal of the future I have ever seen in a movie. As we follow David throughout his journey, we see forests sprinkled with abandoned, chewed up mecha's that comb the metallic junkyards for parts they can use to replace their worn out ones. Then there's a tribute to the classic Blade Runner future, where it's perpetually night, with the majority of lightings coming from flashing chic neon objects. Skyscrapers that eclipse the sky fill every block, and every car can transcend gravity. The one that blew me away was the gritty portrayal of Manhattan... now a ghost town all buried by the ocean save only the tallest buildings.

Welcome to... Sin City!

    The acting was some of the best across the entire cast I have ever seen. Frances O'Connor (Brendan Fraser's love interest in Bedazzled) nailed down the neurotic and depressed mother role perfectly. Jude Law's (Enemy At The Gates) character as a mecha male gigalo served as comic relief in some scenes, and I'll be out for blood if he ain't nominated for a Best Supporting Actor award. It's incredibly difficult to enact comedy in as deep and philosophical a movie such as A.I. without breaking the tense atmosphere, but he had me rolling on the floor. Haley Joel Osment played David with hands down the best performance from not just a child actor, but all actors, I have seen in a long time. And of course, a bulk of the credit goes to all-world writer/director Steven Spielberg for milking out such great performances, not to mention his peerless directing.

    Despite weaving a web that traps itself, A.I. is still a highly recommended film to watch. It toys around with the question of life in general and ponders the mysteries and boundaries of a special kind of love that a child has for his/her mother, not the sappy romantic kind we're inundated with from Hollywood these days. In the end, I left the theatre with a renewed sense of wonder and appreciation for the miracles of life. Even artificial mecha's that are capable of trillions of calculations in a millisecond yearn for humanism. A.I. teaches you to be glad that you're alive, and be glad that one day, you will die. There is no better gift than being born a true human.

I wonder if mecha male and mecha female prostitutes ever "get it on" just for practice...

Grade: A-
-- Would give it an A for effort. Every aspect of A.I. is near perfect except the story itself.

Babe-o-meter: C
-- Frances O'Connor's no hottie. There is a significant prostitute role in the movie. Unfortunately it's a male gigalo.