The idea of Steven Spielberg delivering Stanley Kubrick's long in gestation epic A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) was always going to result in an odd hybrid of a movie. But at its core, A.I. delivers both the warmness of a Spielberg film, and just the right amount of Kubrickian detachment to make the story work. The film expertly sets up the theme of Robotic rebellion and their lack of understanding with the first scene, showing professor Hobby (William Hurt) conducting a talk about the creation of artificial life, after pricking a `mecha' with a pin, professor Hobby asks the machine how she feels about what has just happened. The machine is polite and accommodating, not really sure of what is going on, when Hobby speaks of love, the machine can only translate the intimacy of love, not the act it's self. This then leads us to the introduction of David (Osment), the first robot boy, capable of expressing the love of a real child. The first act now begins and we see David slowly inducted into the Swinton family, originally a replacement for their real son, who languishes in cryogenics until a cure for his illness can be found. But once the son is fit to come home, the Swinton's are faced with the problem of having two children, both fighting over the attention of their mother, one blinded by jealousy, the other blinded by love. Once the mother has abandoned David in the words, the film moves into act two, in which the brightness and optimism of act one slowly becomes a darker and more mechanical pessimism. The climax of act one shows us that it is human error that is causing the problems in society, whereas the parents abandon David because of his failings, because he is a robot, the robots continue the function, because they are programmed to regardless of what happens.
It is from this that the Pinocchio quest begins, and Spielberg expertly draws parallels with the story of the wooden boy searching for the blue fairy to make him real, with the story of a Robotic boy trapped in the same situation. This also helps set up the conscience of the film, in the character of Teddy, a supper toy. It's no surprise that Spielberg (and Kubrick) decided on the Pinocchio element, because David is programmed to think like a child, and it is only natural that he would identify his very real situation with something more aching to fantasy, something that Freud believed in strongly. Children watch cartoons and read fairytales because they give the child hope; it's also a way of telling very dark stories in a lighter way. The use of Pinocchio is a clever devise as the story is really a metaphor for coming of age, and loss of innocence, which is what is at the forefront of A.I. This loss of innocence also sets up the character of Gigolo Joe (Law), a pleasure robot who joins David on his quest, a character who fills David in on the ways of Human law and their feelings about robot kind. When Joe and David find themselves rounded up at the flesh fair, act two takes on a much darker tone. It is here that we get the first look at human error in its fullest form, as robots are slaughtered for the entertainment of humans. It is only after one human believes David to be a real boy that pandemonium breaks out, the message being that the humans are only interested in their own kind. As David and Joe quest to Rouge City to find the blue fairy, the origins of David become more clear, and it is only when we begin to make sense of the whole situation that the film spirals into a third act that comes right out of nowhere.
David, with the knowledge that he is not the original he thought he was, lies at the bottom of the ocean for two thousand years, his blue fairy a statue at a fairytale amusement park, flooded like the rest of Manhattan. It is here that Spielberg's film takes a bizarre turn that it almost doesn't recover from. The sight of the alien beings subtracts the humanity of David's quest, taking away the humanity he had developed over the course of the film. This is also the part of the film that is so obviously trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the aliens recreate David's adopted home, and give him the chance to see his mother once again is almost like Bowman travelling through the star gate and finding himself in the huge house. But it is from this that we must remember that David is a child, that one day with his mother is worth more than anything else to him, and it is also important to think of the possibility that the entire third act could be taking place in David's imagination, as he lies at the bottom of the ocean, slowly shutting down due to the harsh conditions. This would explain the almost fairytale reprise of the narrator (Ben Kingsley), and the strong sentiment of David's perfect day. A lot of people have expressed great hatred to this ending, words like schmaltzy and copout have been thrown around, and it only highlights a noticeable parallel between them, and the humans of A.I., have audiences become so nihilistic that they root for a child (admittedly a robotic child) to be destroyed, and to have his wish go unfulfilled. The ending of the film beautifully nurtures the notion of undying, unconditional love between parent and child, as David's dream of a lifetime with his mother has been granted, even if it means he must lay in the bed for another two-thousand years. A.I. may be an odd hybrid, and it may not have been the film that Kubrick envisioned, but it is definitely a greatly underrated film that has been criticized by talent-less critics who have no real ammo to back up their argument.
It is from this that the Pinocchio quest begins, and Spielberg expertly draws parallels with the story of the wooden boy searching for the blue fairy to make him real, with the story of a Robotic boy trapped in the same situation. This also helps set up the conscience of the film, in the character of Teddy, a supper toy. It's no surprise that Spielberg (and Kubrick) decided on the Pinocchio element, because David is programmed to think like a child, and it is only natural that he would identify his very real situation with something more aching to fantasy, something that Freud believed in strongly. Children watch cartoons and read fairytales because they give the child hope; it's also a way of telling very dark stories in a lighter way. The use of Pinocchio is a clever devise as the story is really a metaphor for coming of age, and loss of innocence, which is what is at the forefront of A.I. This loss of innocence also sets up the character of Gigolo Joe (Law), a pleasure robot who joins David on his quest, a character who fills David in on the ways of Human law and their feelings about robot kind. When Joe and David find themselves rounded up at the flesh fair, act two takes on a much darker tone. It is here that we get the first look at human error in its fullest form, as robots are slaughtered for the entertainment of humans. It is only after one human believes David to be a real boy that pandemonium breaks out, the message being that the humans are only interested in their own kind. As David and Joe quest to Rouge City to find the blue fairy, the origins of David become more clear, and it is only when we begin to make sense of the whole situation that the film spirals into a third act that comes right out of nowhere.
David, with the knowledge that he is not the original he thought he was, lies at the bottom of the ocean for two thousand years, his blue fairy a statue at a fairytale amusement park, flooded like the rest of Manhattan. It is here that Spielberg's film takes a bizarre turn that it almost doesn't recover from. The sight of the alien beings subtracts the humanity of David's quest, taking away the humanity he had developed over the course of the film. This is also the part of the film that is so obviously trying to be 2001: A Space Odyssey, as the aliens recreate David's adopted home, and give him the chance to see his mother once again is almost like Bowman travelling through the star gate and finding himself in the huge house. But it is from this that we must remember that David is a child, that one day with his mother is worth more than anything else to him, and it is also important to think of the possibility that the entire third act could be taking place in David's imagination, as he lies at the bottom of the ocean, slowly shutting down due to the harsh conditions. This would explain the almost fairytale reprise of the narrator (Ben Kingsley), and the strong sentiment of David's perfect day. A lot of people have expressed great hatred to this ending, words like schmaltzy and copout have been thrown around, and it only highlights a noticeable parallel between them, and the humans of A.I., have audiences become so nihilistic that they root for a child (admittedly a robotic child) to be destroyed, and to have his wish go unfulfilled. The ending of the film beautifully nurtures the notion of undying, unconditional love between parent and child, as David's dream of a lifetime with his mother has been granted, even if it means he must lay in the bed for another two-thousand years. A.I. may be an odd hybrid, and it may not have been the film that Kubrick envisioned, but it is definitely a greatly underrated film that has been criticized by talent-less critics who have no real ammo to back up their argument.
