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Robots David (Haley Joel Osment) and Gigolo Joe
(Jude Law) embark on a philosophical trek in A.I.
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The first thing you see when the elevator door opens is a pair of plastic shoes. A pair of plastic pants cover his short legs. It's as if this little boy is wrapped in protective packaging.
"I like your floor," the boy says, flashing a broad smile at his newfound parents. Few children are as well-mannered as David (Haley Joel Osment). Still, David's newfound mother Monica (Frances O'Connor) is uneasy about meeting her adoptive son.
"I can't accept this," Monica tells her husband, Henry (Sam Robards). "There is no substitute for your own child ... I mean Henry, did you see his face? He's so real."
The word "robot" doesn't do David justice. He's 100 miles of electronic fibers hidden beneath a flawless exterior that looks and feels human. David is not like any boy you've ever met before. He's not like any other robot either. All of which puts his adoptive parents into a difficult dilemma. Is David a real person, or is he an amazing, complex, state-of-the-art thing?
Writer/director Steven Spielberg's Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) is one of those rare Hollywood films that is truly philosophical in nature. Its ethical questions about artificial humans and what qualifies someone as "real" stay with you long after you've left the cinema. In terms of sheer subject matter, A.I. is by far Spielberg's most challenging film. But its Pinocchio-inspired melodrama is frequently heavy-handed. For every moment of inspired fantasy, A.I. also stumbles over a clumsy series of fairy tale metaphors. It's amazing how one film can be simultaneously exhilarating and frustrating. More importantly, you never stop wondering what the film's original director, the late Stanley Kubrick, might have done with the story.
The corporate pitch behind David is that he's the perfect child. Or as David's enigmatic inventor (William Hurt) explains to his colleagues, "a robot like David will open a new market as well as fill a human need."
A.I. is essentially about the leap of science and the problems that accompany such scientific advances. A robot like David is perfect for a grieving mother like Monica (O'Connor), who falls deeper into depression after each visit to her ill son who's frozen in a cryogenics lab.
"Your son is beyond our science," the doctor tells Monica's husband. "It's your wife who can still be saved."
In A.I.'s version of the future, a family has the choice of adopting a robot boy. For the grief-stricken Monica, it soon becomes clear that David can help erase her debilitating depression. The dilemma is that, if she and her husband decide they no longer want David, then they must return him to his manufacture for "disruption." Basically, the robot boy will be taken out with the trash.
Spielberg bathes David's adoption ritual in a heavenly glow. It makes for a humorous cross between divine intervention and reading the owner's manual. When the adoption process is over, David speaks the words every mother longs to hear: "You are my mommy."
David unexpectedly finds himself in a sibling rivalry when Martin (Jake Thomas), the real-life son of his adoptive parents, suddenly regains consciousness. The two boys compete ruthlessly for their mother's affections.
"You're not built like a doll," Martin tells his robot brother. "You're just like an ordinary kid."
It's significant that the best moment in A.I. has nothing to do with the film's elaborate special effects. A.I. comes alive when David battles Martin at the family dinner table in a spinach-eating contest. But David's showmanship has a price. Because robot boys aren't supposed to eat spinach, David has to be cleaned and repaired.
The sibling rivalry turns treacherous when Martin tricks David into cutting a lock of hair from their sleeping mother. Later, at a poolside birthday party, David becomes the target of Martin's taunting friends.
Of course, it's inevitable that David will separate from his adoptive family and experience his own adventures. It's what one expects from a film (based on the short story by Brian Aldiss) that intentionally walks in Pinocchio's footsteps.
But A.I. begins to flounder when David leaves his adoptive family, with a robot teddy bear in hand, and befriends a robot hustler named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law). His goal is to find the blue fairy he read about in Pinocchio. You see, David wants to ask the blue fairy to change him into a "real" boy so his mommy will love him.
David's encounter with a robot bounty hunter (Brendan Gleeson) who tortures dilapidated robots at a traveling carnival offers nothing more than a dazzling array of special effects. The same can be said for David's trip to a Las Vegas-like town called Rouge City. Spielberg and his team of Industrial Light & Magic engineers create a number of jaw-dropping cityscapes for A.I. The problem is that none of these effects offer much in the way of character development or substantial storytelling.
Osment possesses the look of unblemished fakery that's essential for playing a robot boy. His wide-open eyes lie at the center of a blank, expressionless face. He's as emotional as a flat line. It's what the character demands. David's appeal is that he's the most quiet, polite, little boy you'll ever meet. He never complains or throws tantrums. More importantly, when it's bed time, he'll go into his room and lie down quietly. Unfortunately, it's easy to lose interest in a character as subdued as David.
The same thing could be said for Hurt, who plays David's emotionless inventor. Every facial expression Hurt displays is a slight variation on a blank stare. Hurt meanders through A.I. like a walking block of ice. Every time he appears, the moment feels anticlimactic.
The film's only lively performance belongs to Law's robot hustler in a plastic coat. Gigolo Joe is the most fantastic creation in all of A.I. Here is a porcelain man who really looks like he's been polished, from his toes to his dippity-do hairdo. When Joe tries to seduce one of his female clients by switching on the stereo inside his head, the effect is both comical and creepy.
David and Gigolo Joe's search for the blue fairy takes them to the underwater graveyard that used to be New York City. The Manhattan skyline barely pokes above the ocean waves. Global warming has turned New York City into a futuristic Atlantis.
The submerged skyscrapers of A.I. are an impressive location for David's climactic embrace of human emotions. Still, Spielberg's attempts at heartfelt melodrama are soon overwhelmed by the film's elaborate effects. A.I. falls into the scrap pile of modern-day blockbusters that no longer have the ability to amaze us with something we've never seen before. Despite its exact attention to detail and abundance of digital imagery, A.I. never makes one wonder: How exactly did they do that? The legacy of the Spielberg blockbuster is that digital effects will often turn the incredible into something lifelike, matter-of-fact and ordinary. It's simply accepted that Industrial Light & Magic engineers are capable of doing anything. With today's special-effects-driven blockbusters, the fantasy movie experience is no longer all that fantastic.
CityBeat grade: C.
