A.I. - Artificial Intelligence Details

[Highly rated reviewer]

either you will love it or hate it

A.I. comes under one of those films that you will either love or hate and I will explain in a moment. For me I enjoyed this film with good characters and equally good acting. The script is very well put together and Speilberg does (as usual) a good job of telling the story. John Williams provides the score and as you would expect is up to his usual standard. Although the film is maybe half an hour to long it doesnt lose its way and will keep you gripped. Now the ending is why I say this film may be a hit or miss with you. It does take a dramatic turn and goes in a direction that you will not expect. It does work but some may think this was a step too far. On the whole a good solid film and worthy of a try.

Misunderstood masterpiece

This is Spielberg’s best film of the last 20 years. Many seem to find its emotional shifts difficult to relate to and misconstrue the film to be sentimental, but really this is the closest Hollywood has come to a big budget art house film in recent years. In tone it is much closer to the work of David Lynch than to the cheap emotional manipulations of Bicentennial Man, to which it has been compared.

A.I. is a film in three parts. The first section is closest to the spirit of co-scenarists Stanley Kubrick's emotionally distant tone and it is brilliant and disturbing.

The second part starts well with the robot hunt, but is the weakest stretch of the film. Spielberg seems uncomfortable around the sexuality of Law's Gigolo Joe character and much of the robot smash derby up feels like a bad Mad Max clone. For a while the film doesn't seem to go anywhere.

The much maligned last act, taking place in a submerged New York is a triumph and the most mature, poetic and (literally) chilling piece of filmmaking Spielberg has yet given us. Many have accused the ending of being sentimental, but I think it is emotionally satisfying while being surprisingly bleak.