A.I.
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Staring Haley Joel Osment, William Hurt and Jude Law
Director Steven Spielberg belongs to us the audience. The undying crowd-pleaser in him, is his greatest asset. It’s also his greatest flaw.
In the last decade, the ever upbeat, Spielberg has had to become a cynic. The reasoning has more to do with the changing audience than the director himself, but he’s not wired to commit to an unhappy ending.
For this reason, A.I., his collaboration with the late Stanley Kubrick, is brilliant and frustrating.
A.I. reboots both directors’ obsession with the classic fairy tale Pinocchio. The world of the wooden boy who wishes to become real is re-imagined for the future. Robots provide the world with indentured service, in some cases, really pushing the moral limits of robot/human relationships.
Too young to be this accomplished, Haley Joel Osment plays David, “a 100 miles of fiber” created by William Hurt (Geppetto) to fill the role of one couples’ comatose son. David is a robotic prototype and the first of his kind. The hope is that David can be mass manufactured to provide many parents with a new familial setting.
But the big question is can this android dream electric sheep? Can he feel and react accordingly? Can he provide a true emotional experience for human parents? David is put to the test, when his adoptive parents are pleasantly surprised by their real sons awakening.
The assimilation of Steven Spielberg’s externalization with Kubrick’s internalization is the true treat of A.I. Two certified filmmaking geniuses have come together to have a philosophical debate on screen. Between the land of the living and the land of the dead, they ponder the true existence of humanity with their film cameras.
Kubrick’s has always had a way of making you squirm, creating a tense, rubberband snapping anticipation to characterize all his films. Spielberg, commercially viable since birth, has always been a master of suspense. Now imagine those two traits engineering a bizarre sci-fi experience.
Spielberg takes a skill he reserves for Velociraptors and Kubrick gets to ring his hands at the squirming director.
The downfall of the movie stems from Spielberg’s insistence to get all sugary with the last 20mins of the movie. You can literally stop the film at 1hr and 55mins and walk away from it certain of it’s display of genius.
For the finale, Spielberg is left to his own faculties in the absence of, the departed, Kubrick. It stands to reason that he should have known better than to hit the 2 hour mark with a narration by Bens Kingsley that states, “2000 years later” and features technologically advanced robots.
In spite of that, it also stands to reason that Kubrick was right. No one could have made this film other than Steven Spielberg.
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Staring Haley Joel Osment, William Hurt and Jude Law
Director Steven Spielberg belongs to us the audience. The undying crowd-pleaser in him, is his greatest asset. It’s also his greatest flaw.
In the last decade, the ever upbeat, Spielberg has had to become a cynic. The reasoning has more to do with the changing audience than the director himself, but he’s not wired to commit to an unhappy ending.
For this reason, A.I., his collaboration with the late Stanley Kubrick, is brilliant and frustrating.
A.I. reboots both directors’ obsession with the classic fairy tale Pinocchio. The world of the wooden boy who wishes to become real is re-imagined for the future. Robots provide the world with indentured service, in some cases, really pushing the moral limits of robot/human relationships.
Too young to be this accomplished, Haley Joel Osment plays David, “a 100 miles of fiber” created by William Hurt (Geppetto) to fill the role of one couples’ comatose son. David is a robotic prototype and the first of his kind. The hope is that David can be mass manufactured to provide many parents with a new familial setting.
But the big question is can this android dream electric sheep? Can he feel and react accordingly? Can he provide a true emotional experience for human parents? David is put to the test, when his adoptive parents are pleasantly surprised by their real sons awakening.
The assimilation of Steven Spielberg’s externalization with Kubrick’s internalization is the true treat of A.I. Two certified filmmaking geniuses have come together to have a philosophical debate on screen. Between the land of the living and the land of the dead, they ponder the true existence of humanity with their film cameras.
Kubrick’s has always had a way of making you squirm, creating a tense, rubberband snapping anticipation to characterize all his films. Spielberg, commercially viable since birth, has always been a master of suspense. Now imagine those two traits engineering a bizarre sci-fi experience.
Spielberg takes a skill he reserves for Velociraptors and Kubrick gets to ring his hands at the squirming director.
The downfall of the movie stems from Spielberg’s insistence to get all sugary with the last 20mins of the movie. You can literally stop the film at 1hr and 55mins and walk away from it certain of it’s display of genius.
For the finale, Spielberg is left to his own faculties in the absence of, the departed, Kubrick. It stands to reason that he should have known better than to hit the 2 hour mark with a narration by Bens Kingsley that states, “2000 years later” and features technologically advanced robots.
In spite of that, it also stands to reason that Kubrick was right. No one could have made this film other than Steven Spielberg.
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