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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The story is that Stanley Kubrick bought the screen rights to the sci-fi short story, "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss, over twenty years ago and tinkered with one script after another waiting for film technology to catch up to his ideas for the movie. He collaborated with Steven Spielberg on and off for a number of those years, so when Kubrick passed away, the project fell into Spielberg’s court and "A.I." was born. I never read the original story, so I don’t know how much of the film’s beginning originated with the author or the filmmakers. The opening is analogous to Kubrick’s situation in the way Monica (Frances O’Connor) and Henry Swinton (Sam Robards) wait patiently year after year for the technology in the futuristic "A.I." to be invented so that they can bring their son Martin (Jake Thomas) back to life from a cryogenic state. Monica’s needs are more immediate than Kubrick’s were, so the Swintons don’t have the same luxury of time to realize their dream. When Henry has the opportunity to fill the hole in his wife’s life with David (Haley Joel Osment), the first in a new line of true to life mecha boys (mechanical boys), he takes a chance. David is programmed to love unconditionally once he is accepted through a careful sequencing of words and direct eye contact that imprint his ownership. However, there is nothing in the contract that says its owner must love David unconditionally in return.. Once David is tested and accepted by Monica, "A.I." takes off in a multitude of directions that explores the very nature of humanity.

"A.I." is equal parts sci-fi, fantasy and adult fairy tale. David is created by Dr. Hobby (William Hurt) in the image and likeness of his own departed son. He is placed into the world like a wide eyed innocent without a mean chip in his circuit boards. He becomes the loving child who helps rekindle the familial feelings of a mother who needs someone or something to love. He learns about cruelty and jealousy through the childish pranks inflicted upon him. The programmed child in David soon comes face to face with the harsh reality that he is a mecha-boy. As such he cannot tell the difference between reality and fiction when Monica reads him the story, Pinocchio, about a wooden boy who yearns to become a real boy. David is so real to Monica that her love for him becomes just as genuine. When his actions disrupt the Swinton household, she can’t bear to return him to the factory. Monica abandons David in the wilderness with the notion that he could return if he were a real boy like her resurrected son. David is not programmed to accept rejection and goes in search of the Blue Fairy from the Pinocchio story in the hope of becoming a real boy and winning back his mother’s love - unconditionally.

David is thrust into the real world totally unprepared for the adventures that await him, much like Pinocchio whose tale is implemented to chart the course of David’s quest. David’s mecha-toy Teddy bear, aptly named Teddy, becomes his Jiminy Cricket. The world at large has mechas for every need and every occasion. They run the gamut of nannies and butlers to hookers and gigolos, each designed to fulfill some human need. David goes from the safety of the insular world of the Swintons to the macabre realm of the Flesh Fair where discarded robots are obliterated for sport like victims in the Roman Coliseum. David’s savior and self appointed tour guide is Gigolo Joe, played with an exquisite sense of amoral fun by Jude Law. Their search for the Blue Fairy takes them to Rouge City where man or machine can indulge their wildest fantasies like the runaway boys of Pinocchio’s Pleasure Island. A Wizard of Oz-like ghost-in-the-machine points the way to David’s creator and a city submerged in water. Once there, David hopes to find answers to the same questions that have mystified man since the beginning of time - "Where do I come from?" and "Why am I here?" David goes through the same emotional ups and downs of a real person. Fear and confusion are diffused by the joys of friendship and the exhilaration of The Quest: one that reaches beyond time to find a Blue Fairy and the purity of a mother’s love with a mixture of the surreal and the fantastic. "A.I." may not be a movie for children of all ages, but it does speak to the yearnings of the ageless child that dwells within us all.

No matter what you think of Steven Spielberg’s latest sci-fi fantasy, "A.I.," there is no doubt that the key performances by Jude Law and Haley Joel Osment are nothing short of miraculous. As machines, you never see them blink. (Although, I thought I detected a twitch or two, here or there.) Law’s Gigolo Joe is a cockeyed optimist from beginning to end continually spouting upbeat lines about his character - a slinky, seedy babe magnet. Haley Joel Osment has proven once and for all that he is one of the finest male child actors to hit the silver screen since Mickey Rooney became a member of "Boys Town." Osment graduated to the big time with "The Sixth Sense" and followed through with a mesmerizing performance in "Pay It Forward." He transforms "A. I"’s David from a clueless automaton who mimics everything he sees into a complex real-live-kid-wannabe who runs through the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can’t take your eyes off of him. Steven Spielberg may have supplemented his wanton gaze with split images to reflect the duality of his nature, and framed his presence through rippled glass to suggest the jumble of his emotional circuitry but when David asks his surrogate mother, Monica, "Mommy? Will you die?," Haley Joel Osment’s got ya’ for the rest of the movie. Osment’s performance has an emotional depth that takes some actors a lifetime to achieve.

Copyright 2001

"Pinocchio" (1940) - This Disney classic based on the Collodi (Carlo Lorenzini) story still can’t be beat no matter how many times you see it. Pinocchio is the wooden puppet who is given life and a chance to prove himself worthy enough to be a real boy.

"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) - Another bona fide classic based on the Frank L.Baum story with Judy Garland as Dorothy, the Kansas gal who just wants to get back home with the help of the Tin Man, a Cowardly Lion, and a Scarecrow. This is a definite inspiration for one of the key scenes in "A.I."

"The Blue Bird" (1940) - Shirley Temple searches for the Blue Bird of Happiness. Not the classic it was supposed to be but it was a chance to see Shirley in color.

"Total Recall" (1990) - Some of the more darker parts of "A. I." made me think of this over-the-top sci-fi epic made by Paul Verhoeven with Arnold Schwarzeneger as a man trying to reclaim his identity and going to Mars to do it. Based on the Philp K.Dick story, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale."