Copyright © 2001 by Michael Segers, All rights reserved
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A.I. Artificial Intelligence
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Let’s try this: Close Encounters with a Clockwork Orange or ET:
A Space Odyssey? Mixing up the sensibilities of Stanley Kubrick and Steven
Spielberg leads to a film that might carry the title of another of this
summer’s offerings, Crazy/Beautiful.
This is not the film that Kubrick wanted to make for a score of years,
and it isn’t the film Spielberg would have made if Kubrick hadn’t been
involved in the project. To return
to what has been an ongoing theme of this summer’s raves: this is not a movie
for kids. It is too long (even for
some adults), too slow, too heavy, too, too artificial, too much intelligence,
not enough passion.
And yet, ironically, passion is what the film is about—about on
an intellectual level—although we are supposed to be engrossed in a story
about a robot (Haley Joel Osment, in another of his
better-than-a-kid-ought-to-be performances) who wants to be loved.
Think of Pinocchio with a neon nose.
The film falls into three acts, the first of which is a dry, sad
tale about a rejected adoptee. In a
twist on a fairy tale (I prefer Shrek),
David, the robot boy, is taken to the woods to save his life (not the only
suggestion of Oedipus in this film).
The second act is dominated by the weird characterization of Gigolo Joe
(played with smarmy perfection by Jude Law) as the ultimate sex toy, who
(which?) befriends David and together, they end up at the Flesh Fair, where
By the time Robin Williams shows up for the third act—well, he
doesn’t show up, we just hear him—in a weird throwback to his Bicentennial
Man role, we’re watching a film no better than that mess.
If Kubrick
had lived and made this film, it might have been crazier, but I suspect it might
have in some ways been more beautiful. At
least, he would have had the good sense to end the film at its ending.
Spielberg drags things out about a half hour more than they need.