STORY - OVERVIEW: In a world where advanced robots are a common convenience, David (Haley Joel Osment) is created to be the first robot boy to have the ability to love. Through David, A.I. explores the human identity, their self-proclaimed superiority over other beings, as well as the responsibility of humans to other beings.
HUMAN IDENTITY: Humans treat robots as mindless machines. When Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) proposes to build David, he off-handedly compares his creating David to God's creating Adam, claiming it will be like when 'God created Adam to love him'. Hobby displays the arrogance of humanity through a willingness to irresponsibly manipulate 'lesser beings'.
As an unlicensed runaway, David is captured and taken to the Flesh Fair to be destroyed to the amusement of its spectators. When David takes his fateful place on stage, he pleads that he is 'just a boy'. Having never seen this before, the crowd goes silent. Then the crowd sides with David, saving him from death. David's plea touches the crowd, forcing them to change their idea of what it means to be considered human.
ARE ROBOTS SELF AWARE?: Self-awareness defines humanity, but it is also a device that enables humans to see themselves as superior to other creatures. At the Flesh Fair, we start to realize that robots are self-aware. One robot asks another robot to shut off his 'pain circuits' so that his death will be painless. Later, Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), when captured by the police and facing death, tells David, "I am. I was!? This parallels Descartes? "I think, therefore I am," and demonstrates Joe's self-awareness.
RESPONSIBILITY TO OTHERS: Love is a dynamic, interconnectedness of two beings, not just a static, one-sided emotion. The responsibility of love, likewise, falls on both sides. In David's case, love is not a freely made choice. Instead, David's fate is to be irreversibly imprinted with someone whom he must love.
Monica imprints David, but has to reject him because he doesn't fit in. Later, David decides that if he could become a real, live boy, it would enable Monica to love him. In an effort to realize his dream, David pleads to a statue for it to turn him into a real boy, a plea that spans 2000 years. David cannot simply decide that this desire for Monica's love is not worth his pain. David's single-minded goal of love was irreversibly programmed into him and he is at the mercy of his unchangeable feelings.
DAVID'S PURPOSE: The ending reveals David's ultimate purpose: he delivers information about what humans were like with the advanced race, helping to fulfill their goal of learning more about what humankind were like. By design, David fails to realize his contribution, being concerned only with Monica's love.
FAULTS: When an advanced race of beings appears near the end, I first thought they were aliens from another planet. Through the DVD extras, I learned the 'aliens' are instead extremely advanced descendants of robots like David and Joe. To not make this story point clear was a major flub, as there is nothing to be gained by keeping the audience in the dark.
When Monica is reconstructed from her DNA, it is explained that she can only be reconstructed exactly one time. Unfortunately, the explanation is too abstract for us to understand what's going on. The ending had several different interpretations, but only because it was unintentionally vague. See the IMDB.com A.I. message boards for some of the various interpretations.
CINEMATOGRAPHY/EFFECT: I wish I had seen A.I. in the theater, as there were many scenes that didn't translate well to DVD. Panoramic cities and wide landscapes that were beautiful on DVD surely would have been spectacular and haunting on the big screen.
LIGHTING: Much of the lighting was excellent, and followed the feeling of the story well. The first third of the story was clean and sterile. The second third was dark, harsh, and moody. The last third was emotive with lots of contrast. Sometimes the lighting effects came off as a bit gimmicky. Near the end, when David and Monica are in her bedroom, there is a glint of sunlight that transforms the scene from looking at Monica to looking at David. While the effect is inspirational, it also feels played up. Overall, the lighting added to the story in a simple yet expressive way.
CONCLUSIONS: The issues dealt with in A.I. are so broad in their scope that the story must necessarily fail to achieve any large measure of focus, even considering its near 2-1/2 hour running time. The nicest part of the story is that it is told so that the audience gets to draw their own conclusions, as opposed to the popular practice of spoon-feeding answers at the end. With A.I., the viewer can draw different conclusions throughout the movie as we see how things progress.
A.I. ended up being more thought provoking than entertaining. I enjoyed this tradeoff, and will watch this movie again.
HUMAN IDENTITY: Humans treat robots as mindless machines. When Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) proposes to build David, he off-handedly compares his creating David to God's creating Adam, claiming it will be like when 'God created Adam to love him'. Hobby displays the arrogance of humanity through a willingness to irresponsibly manipulate 'lesser beings'.
As an unlicensed runaway, David is captured and taken to the Flesh Fair to be destroyed to the amusement of its spectators. When David takes his fateful place on stage, he pleads that he is 'just a boy'. Having never seen this before, the crowd goes silent. Then the crowd sides with David, saving him from death. David's plea touches the crowd, forcing them to change their idea of what it means to be considered human.
ARE ROBOTS SELF AWARE?: Self-awareness defines humanity, but it is also a device that enables humans to see themselves as superior to other creatures. At the Flesh Fair, we start to realize that robots are self-aware. One robot asks another robot to shut off his 'pain circuits' so that his death will be painless. Later, Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), when captured by the police and facing death, tells David, "I am. I was!? This parallels Descartes? "I think, therefore I am," and demonstrates Joe's self-awareness.
RESPONSIBILITY TO OTHERS: Love is a dynamic, interconnectedness of two beings, not just a static, one-sided emotion. The responsibility of love, likewise, falls on both sides. In David's case, love is not a freely made choice. Instead, David's fate is to be irreversibly imprinted with someone whom he must love.
Monica imprints David, but has to reject him because he doesn't fit in. Later, David decides that if he could become a real, live boy, it would enable Monica to love him. In an effort to realize his dream, David pleads to a statue for it to turn him into a real boy, a plea that spans 2000 years. David cannot simply decide that this desire for Monica's love is not worth his pain. David's single-minded goal of love was irreversibly programmed into him and he is at the mercy of his unchangeable feelings.
DAVID'S PURPOSE: The ending reveals David's ultimate purpose: he delivers information about what humans were like with the advanced race, helping to fulfill their goal of learning more about what humankind were like. By design, David fails to realize his contribution, being concerned only with Monica's love.
FAULTS: When an advanced race of beings appears near the end, I first thought they were aliens from another planet. Through the DVD extras, I learned the 'aliens' are instead extremely advanced descendants of robots like David and Joe. To not make this story point clear was a major flub, as there is nothing to be gained by keeping the audience in the dark.
When Monica is reconstructed from her DNA, it is explained that she can only be reconstructed exactly one time. Unfortunately, the explanation is too abstract for us to understand what's going on. The ending had several different interpretations, but only because it was unintentionally vague. See the IMDB.com A.I. message boards for some of the various interpretations.
CINEMATOGRAPHY/EFFECT: I wish I had seen A.I. in the theater, as there were many scenes that didn't translate well to DVD. Panoramic cities and wide landscapes that were beautiful on DVD surely would have been spectacular and haunting on the big screen.
LIGHTING: Much of the lighting was excellent, and followed the feeling of the story well. The first third of the story was clean and sterile. The second third was dark, harsh, and moody. The last third was emotive with lots of contrast. Sometimes the lighting effects came off as a bit gimmicky. Near the end, when David and Monica are in her bedroom, there is a glint of sunlight that transforms the scene from looking at Monica to looking at David. While the effect is inspirational, it also feels played up. Overall, the lighting added to the story in a simple yet expressive way.
CONCLUSIONS: The issues dealt with in A.I. are so broad in their scope that the story must necessarily fail to achieve any large measure of focus, even considering its near 2-1/2 hour running time. The nicest part of the story is that it is told so that the audience gets to draw their own conclusions, as opposed to the popular practice of spoon-feeding answers at the end. With A.I., the viewer can draw different conclusions throughout the movie as we see how things progress.
A.I. ended up being more thought provoking than entertaining. I enjoyed this tradeoff, and will watch this movie again.