A.I: Artificial Intelligence

When Stanley Kubrick passed away suddenly in 1999 during post-production on his last film, Eyes Wide Shut, he left behind several unproduced projects. The biggest of these was a film called A.I: Artificial Intelligence, which was going to be Stanley's next film. Steven Spielberg, who was a close friend of Stanley Kubrick, picked up the film where Kubrick left off, with the result being one of the more polarizing films Spielberg has ever made but also one I think is due for some re-evaluation.

In the late 22nd Century, rising sea levels from global warming has wiped out several coastal cities, including New York City, and human population is dwindling, giving the rise of Mecha beings, highly advanced humanoid robotic beings capable of thoughts and emotions. The newest model is a young boy named David (played by Haley Joel Osment). The prototype is sent to Henry and Monica Swinton (played by Sam Robards and Frances O'Connor), whose own son, Martin (played by Jake Thomas) is currently in suspended animation until a cure for a mystery ailment can be found. Monica is initially resistant to the idea of David being in the house, but begins to warm up to him, eventually initiating what is called an imprinting process that was cause David to think of Monica as his actual mother and be able to love her unconditionally. For awhile, things are looking up as Monica continues to bond with David and gives him an advanced robotic "Super Toy" teddy bear named, appropriately, Teddy (voiced by Jack Angel). Things take a turn when the doctors find a cure for Martin's ailment and he is able to come home. Not taking well to there being an imposter in the house and jealous of David's relationship with his mother, Martin starts to try to sabotage David's placement in the home. He tells David to go cut a lock of Monica's hair in the middle of the night, with Monica awakening to find David standing by her with a pair of scissors, alarming both Monica and Henry. Following a further incident between Martin and David at a family pool party leads Henry to persuade Monica to return David to his creator for destruction. Unable to go through with it, she abandons him in the woods to live as an unregistered Mecha with Teddy. Devastated, David and Teddy encounter other unregistered and obsolete mecha, including another one on the run after being framed for murder, Gigolo Joe (played by Jude Law).  The two are captured by the purveyors of an anti-Mecha "Flesh Fair" where old Mechas are destroyed to cheering crowds. Gigolo Joe and David narrowly escape when members of the crowd have trouble believing David is a Mecha and the crowd shift towards letting David go. Escaping the flesh fair with Joe and Teddy, David sets out on a delusional mission to find The Blue Fairy, the character from the Pinocchio storybook Monica used to read to him in his attempt to become a real boy so he can return to Monica, convinced that will allow her to love him again.

This film is a unique blending of both the sensibilities of Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. Spielberg crafted the final screenplay for the film from the story treatments and storyboards developed for the film. He also had lengthy discussions with Kubrick about the film and on more than one occasion, Kubrick tried to get Spielberg to direct the film instead, stating it played more to Spielberg's sensibilities. Yet, the film still feels genuinely like a Kubrick film much more so than a Spielberg film. The themes of the story about humanity and what exactly makes someone real, as well as the core of human nature that play out in the film are ones that Kubrick examined time and again in his films and are present throughout here. The character of David is an interesting one. At the beginning of the film, he is all robot and clearly responding only to his programming. But the more time he spends with Monica and then later Martin, he begins to learn and develop. He begins displaying genuine human emotions, such as jealousy. As the film continues, David grows and develops as the line between man and machine gets increasingly blurrier. As a viewer, I began to wonder if David's obsession with being reunited with Monica just part of his programming, or had he developed genuine feeling for her? And if we are able to create machines that can exhibit and have complex emotional responses, regardless if they were created by the miracle of life or by humans, don't they deserve to live just the same? It is this very question that makes the Flesh Fair segment of the film so horrifying to me, as all these different Mechas are tortured and torn apart for the entertainment of the masses. The film asks the audience some difficult questions and doesn't provide easy answers. It's a film that has stuck with me both when I first saw in in theaters back in 2001 and now, seventeen years later. I've always liked this film for it's complexity and how it explores it's story.

The acting in this film is great, starting with Haley Joel Osment as David. It's a fantastic performance in a role that would be very difficult to pull off. He starts off the film very robotic and cold, everything feels like a programmed response. Yet, as it goes on and David grows and evolves throughout the film and with it so does Osment's portrayal of David. He is able to make David's growth so gradual that it sneaks up on the viewer. Jude Law is great at the prostitute Mecha Gigolo Joe, providing a sense of care and tenderness to his character, yet still comes off as robotic as well. It's a fine line but Law manages to pull is off. Jack Angel provides the voice of Teddy, the sort of Jimminy Cricket to David's Pinocchio, and remains a faithful companion trying to warn him away from dangers throughout their journey together. He conveys so much of the character through his voice and really made that character come to life in a wonderful way, adding an unexpected sense of maturity to a child's toy.

I feel that all these years later, A.I: Artificial Intelligence deserves a re-evaluation. Initially received as a flawed film, a lost Kubrick masterpiece ruined by Steven Spielberg, with criticism directed towards the climax of the film. Except the ending of the film was always what was intended by Stanley Kubrick from the very beginning. It's a surprisingly complex film that asks some serious questions about the nature of life and what forms it can take despite how it was created, especially as our technological development continues to grow and evolve. Not only is this film a wonderful tribute from Spielberg to Stanley Kubrick, but I think it's also one of Spielberg's best films as well.