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The Movie: It has long been said that Stanley Kubrick was a revolutionary director of American films. From the ultra violent A Clockwork Orange, to the satirical nature of Dr Strangelove to Full Metal Jacket there is no question that over his long career he made many memorable films and changed the face of American cinema for the better. In 1985, Kubrick bought the rights to a short story entitled "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss. A futuristic tale involving a young boy by the name of David who looks real but is not. However while Kubrick was interested in telling the story between humans and a human-robot hybrid there were a few things that stood in his way. The first major problem was the fact that Kubrick is a notoriously slow filmmaker and therefore was worried about working with a child actor who by the time filming was finished may have grown up. Another concern came to the forefront as he got further and further into writing the screenplay as he became increasingly frustrated with the special effects available at the time. In fact, he came close to abandoning the project until he saw Steven Spielberg's 1993 dinosaur opus Jurassic Park. After that film came out Kubrick phoned Spielberg for advice on computer generated effects and some issues regarding the story. It was also around this time that Spielberg was asked by Kubrick to direct the project. However as Spielberg got involved with other projects A.I was put on the back burner. During filming of the Eyes Wide Shut Kubrick once again announced he would be working on A.I. However the director would pass away just one week after completing the Tom Cruise/Nicole Kidman drama. Fearing that A.I would never see the light of day the Kubrick estate contacted Spielberg and asked he'd be interested in seeing the project through. Spielberg agreed and now the long awaited final Kubrick influenced production hits the screen. In the not too distant future, the world has changed quite a bit from the one we now know. After numerous catastrophic disasters, the government has put population control measures into place. In addition to this, there are now two types of citizens "Orga" and "Mecha". Orga being people of an organic nature (Humans) with Mecha being people of a mechanical nature (robots). Under these new laws each set of parents is allowed to only have one child. Monica (Frances O'Connor) and her husband Henry (Sam Robards) Swinton have a son named Martin (Jake Thomas) who has been frozen until a time when a cure is found for his illness. Henry is an employee at Cybertronics, the leading manufacturer of Mecha's. One day Alan Hobbey (William Hurt) the leading scientist on the project develops a mecha that is capable of the real human emotion of love. Henry takes home the first prototype to try and fill the void left in his wife's life. David (Haley Joel Osment) is a mecha-child who while his outsides look and feel real inside he is machine. One day Martin miraculously recovers and when conflicts between him and David arise Monica is left with an interesting moral question. She knows that the agreement between her and Cybertronics prevents her from offering David up for adoption and that if he is returned he will be destroyed. So one day she takes David out into the middle of a forest and explains to him that she has to leave without him. She tells him to stay away from all humans and not to go in one certain direction. Confused and unsure of himself David sets out to find the blue fairy who he thinks can turn him into a real boy that Monica will love. Along the way he meets Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) a mecha created specifically to give pleasure. Joe is fleeing Rouge City after he is set up in the apparent death of one of his clients. Together Joe and David travel in search of the blue fairy while trying to avoid capture from humans. A.I is a Steven Spielberg movie and as such a lot of care was taken in the casting of the various roles. While Kubrick was unsure of how to cast the film and at one time was reportedly interested in doing the movie with robot. Spielberg had no doubt that the person for the role would be the extremely talented Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, Pay it Forward). Haley Joel is a unique talent in Hollywood right now, he's young and unlike many child stars he can truly hold his own with major Hollywood talent. In The Sixth Sense and Pay it Forward he showed that he could steal scenes from Bruce Willis and Kevin Spacey but in A.I, he is the one left to carry the scene and he does so very well. His performance is so strong that he conveys an amazing set of emotions, he is loveable at times yet downright creepy at others. From his first scene when he examines the texture of the Swinton's floor to his constant longing to become a real boy so that he can once again regain Monica's love his range of emotions is outstanding. There is no question that Haley is the only person working today that could handle this tough and demanding role. Frances O'Connor (Bedazzled) also puts in an excellent performance as Monica, a mother whose only son has been frozen for over 5 years. Her loss hits her so hard that when she sees that she can have another child in the form of a mecha she is reluctant but willing to try anything to fill the void. When she begins to love David it seems genuine but then when her son is cured she is torn between the love for her natural son and the one of mechanical origin. Like Haley Joel Osment, the emotions clearly come across in Frances O'Connor's performance. Jude Law plays Joe the sex robot with great charm and humor, after all how seriously can a robot that provides his own background music during sex be. Not only are the starring performances excellent but so are the supporting performances. The best supporting performance is that of Jack Angel's Teddy. Jack is a veteran of voice performances having contributed to over 50 animated TV shows and movies. Jack brings David's other companion to life. Also worth noting is William Hurt in his small role as Professor Allan Hobbey who took the mecha technology to the next level with David's creation. The production design and look of A.I. is one of the most interesting I've ever seen captured on film. Spielberg shot the film in true Kubrick style and some shots have haunting similarities to shots that can be found in other Kubrick pictures. From the very sterile looking Swinton household to the lavish Rouge City, all of those involved in creating the often dark and bleak yet sometimes vibrant look of the film should be applauded. Kubrick was worrying needlessly about how the visual effects would look as ILM has created some of their best work ever for this feature. The remains of New York City after being submerged by a major tidal wave is quite possibly the most impressive visual effect I've ever seen. Steven's usual cinematographer Janusz Kaminiski has shot this film exquisitely capturing both the surroundings and characters well. Technically this is a very impressive film. A.I is not your typical Steven Spielberg movie although it does contains aspects of a Spielberg film. It's more a Stanley Kubrick movie and I think this has to do with the amount of work done on the film before Stanley's untimely death. Now I'm a fan of both filmmakers and was very interested in seeing the result of a collaboration of the two. Like many of Kubrick's film it asks a lot of questions and deals with a number of subjects. A.I. is a movie about humanity and unconditional love but that's not all it's about. It shows that though many years have passed since our current day and age many of the problems that plagued our society will occur again in the future. The inability for humans to love mechas as well as the violent nature of the deaths of many mechas are problems that are around today in different forms. This is a dark and moody picture while still maintaining a positive message. Another thing is that the movie comes to what would be seen as a natural ending to the story but the movie doesn't end here. It's at this point where the movie shifts gears and begins to turn into something very different then what it was before. Mainstream movie goers would likely prefer to end the film here but I felt that the last 20 minutes while different in nature were very important to the story. Would Kubrick have ended it sooner, perhaps but the ending brings forth even more questions and changes what the movie is about. Like Eyes Wide Shut and others before it this film asks many questions and very few are answered. The meaning is left up to the audience to decide which is something I love to have happen in a movie. The similarities with this film and Kubrick's don't end there either. Kubrick has been known to use very little music in his films. He often preferred to have silence in key dramatic moments to try and achieve a haunting and surreal feel to scenes. While that occurs in A.I. most of the scenes are set to a very effective John Williams score that goes from his standard orchestral work to a more modern upbeat electronic feel. Another thing that Spielberg followed on A.I was the marketing approach Kubrick used on Eyes Wide Shut which I felt worked for that film but hindered this one. The trailers for A.I. could better be described as teasers as they contained very little footage from the film. They seemed somewhat hokey and didn't make me want to see the film. I feel the marketing campaign could have been much better and that maybe this approach was not the right one to use for this particular film. Another interesting thing to note about the marketing campaign was the use of hidden clues within TV Spots and trailers that led people into a web based game that deals with the general concepts of the film but not the events of the film itself. Another thing troubling me about the marketing campaign is that the film may appeal to kids. For this reason I'm a tad worried that many parents will bring their kids to see A.I based on Spielberg's name in the credits or that it's about a young robotic child. This is not a kid's picture and contains a lot of imagery that will frighten kids. Young kids will not understand the reasons for the events that happen to David. It's also a very slow moving picture at times. My advice to parents is to leave the kids at home with a sitter and enjoy A.I. on their own. When I walked out of A.I. after the screening I was a bit confused at what I had just seen. I was unsure of the movie but as the hours passed afterwards and the ideas presented had time to consume my all too tired mind. I found that I liked the film a great deal. A similar thing happened to me with Eyes Wide Shut as the credits rolled I was shocked and unable to process what I had just seen. A.I. is a film that needs to be seen multiple times and will be discussed by film students for hours in the days and weeks to come. It's not a mainstream Spielberg movie and as such may leave some movie-goers unhappy. Instead it's a movie for film fans like myself. Thank You Steven for bringing Stanley back to us one last time. A fitting tip of the hat to a great film maker and a great man. Reviewed by Mark McLeod on June 29th 2001. |