You may or may not have heard of A.I. until it was recently released (on Friday), but chances are, you did. Mostly because it was the last project, the project that Kubrick “had been trying to make for the last 20 years”, I’m sure. The marketing campaign was more underground than over the top, and thankfully so. The elaborate internet “game” was interesting, but by all accounts an elaborate attempt to re-create the “organic” wave of hype that vaulted the Blair Witch Project into success a couple of years back. “But wait!” you say. Yes, I know. The game had so little to do with the movie, it was just a little confusing, and many people got more caught up in the game than the actual movie (and in my opinion, the idea of this highly involved, distributed, puzzling game was/is more exciting, riveting, compelling than the movie was). Well, stick with me, gentle reader, ’cause it don’t get much better. Well, maybe a little, but then when you think it gets better, it doesn’t again. And then that keeps happening waaaay to long. In any case, I swear this is a good review.
You may also want to go and read the original short story, it will take you 10 minutes. Unless you are dumb.
P.S. — enjoy the Slashdot review
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Now, I respect both of the filmmakers involved with this project. Stanley Kubrick is and will always be ahead of his time. You don’t make Clockwork Orange or 2001 on accident. Spielberg, much the same, reinvented film in his own image. Putting a sense of the fantastic, and a touch of humility and emotion into all that he does (see E.T.), and sometime to a fault.
First up, I’m gonna do a review! No spoilers, but perhaps a little plot discussed. Nothing you wouldn’t know. Then, a complete capsule of the movie. Plenty of spoilers there. But it will be funny! So, REVIEW then HUMOROUS CAPSULE.
REVIEW
I enjoyed chunks of this movie. I really did. But that is a problem when you are attempting to tell a cohesive story. Chunkiness is good for tasty salsa, and not necessarily for a story to be told in 2.5 hours. I know in my heart of hearts that there is a 6 hour edit of this movie. There just has to be. There are so many things that are either not explained, or not investigated long enough, leaving out what could be some very interesting, very engrossing details. Spielberg instead tries to involve the viewer by using long, meaningful shots. And plenty of them. Like a robot staring at this, and a robot staring at that. One movie that got those long, meaningful shots right was Terrence Malick in The Thin Red Line. But the shots are really just tools that the movie uses to re-inforce certain themes. In a movie with so many swirling themes as AI, these shots seem to get lost, or forgotten within the film.
I guess that’s my big beef with the film. It’s too short to do the MANY MANY themes of the film justice. Half-explored, half-detailed themes, and little if any mingling between them. I would have liked to have seen a better explored mother-surrogate child relationship, rather than the hour-long treatise it was served. The seedy underbelly of the world, and the dischord between humans and robots could have been played out much better than the Mad Max-esque treatment in the middle of the film. Jude Law REALLY, REALLY was excellent as the singing, dancing digital Don Juan, but we see too little of him in the film. The idea that William Hurt, who plays the creator of David (Robo-boy), is suffering from his own loss of child could have seen more justice, rather than a panning montage of “In Memory Of David” photos on his desk. Robo-lad’s entire journey to become accepted could have been better played as well.
This movie seems to have been mashed together in the editing room, and glued into place by numerous cheap plot devices, warm-fuzzies, and the occasionally horrid action sequence, cameo voice-over, or mushy plot device. I attribute this to the fact that it was headed by two very independent filmmakers, Kubrick and Spielberg. Combining the compressed time-frame of the movie, the many shallow treatments of the themes of the movie, and the ill-executed bridgework between them made this movie feel more like a patchwork, a Frankenstein’s monster, if you will. The end result will leave many viewers either disappointed or asking many questions. It’s not a BAD movie, per se, and is worth the price of admission. See it once, if only to bask in how good this movie COULD have been.
END REVIEW
****WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD!****
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PLOT SUMMARY
(with humour added to make reading this at least partially worth-while)
Anyway, lets get on to the capsule of the movie. The movie starts off, providing us with some little-needed backstory about time/place, you know, important stuff to a movie that starts in the future, and spans two millenia. The seas have risen, and many people have moved in-land (rather than growing gills), and due to the crowding, limits on child-bearing are put into place. Combine that with the fact that our two parents (who appear in the movie for one solid stretch, and then are promptly forgotten for NEARLY the rest of the movie), have “lost” a child to a viral disease. Oh, but modern science allows us to make ice-pops out of dearly almost-departed! Thank goodness. Keep in mind that in any movie that involves people in stasis (i.e. 2001,2010, The Mummy), they will ALWAYS wake-up, usually at inopportune times.
But i digress. So, the stage is set for our pale-faced, solemn eyed little cyber-boy. The first scene is actually a meeting in a company that apparently builds these little electro-hominids, with William Hurt as the Ed Harris-like (see The Truman Show) genious who has the psychological trauma to actually subject the populace to these tiny little kill-o-drones.
Meanwhile, Mommy is lonely, and needs to let go of her Otter-Pop son, whom I’m sure will NEVER, EVER come back. Ever. Never-ever. So, cue up the hilarious mom-and-robo-son getting acquainted while Daddy is at work scenes. Pay no attention to time. Sprinkle this with the unnerving possibility of a silicon-fueled bloodbath (from having seen Child’s Play), and there you have it.
Yay! Mommy likes the little boy. Oh no! What? Otter-pop has come back to life unexpectedly and unexplainably? I thought the medical technology to do so was years off?! Sure, it probably was, but we were never given any cue to the time frame. Daddy didn’t seem older, and Mommy’s hairstyle didn’t change, so I guess…. Anyway. Now Otter-pop has to come home after what I assume were some most horrorshow cinnies he’d ever viddied in his whole life, and to complete the Clockwork Orange reference, he meets up with his replacement at home! Yay!
Needless to say, Otter-Pop and Boy-Bot are immediately friends, and as any good REAL son would do to a fake son (i.e. stepson or robo-sibling), he subjects him to the sort of mind-games that one would only expect from a Ho-Chi Minh era Viet-Cong torture-master. Mommy doesn’t REALLY love you, she just likes the fact that you can pick up the couch when she vacuums. So, in order for you to win back her heart you must A) surprise her with sharp objects to the facial area, and B) freak out and nearly drown me.
Well, as you can tell, the little cybo-tyke pulls off his mission with exacting precision. This causes Mommy to do the next sensible thing, and drop little mechano-lad OFF IN THE WOODS, like some puppy “because I know what they’ll do to you!”.
Oh, let’s not forget Teddy. Teddy is a Teddy-Ruxpinesque little gem who shines in this movie. He’s got a voice like gravel, and with his freakish ability to walk upright, form complete sentences, and even act angry, he’s a PERFECT kids toy. He once was Otter-pops, but now has been sent to the same deciduous demise as Lectro the Boy Wonder. Oh, he also provides a convenient stowage place for a silly, redundant, and yet somehow heart-warming plot device (more on that later).
Now, after machinenkinder (machine child in German, btw) is dropped in the wood, we bid farewell to the BEGINNING Of the movie as if it ALMOST, ALMOST didn’t happen. Or at least, we don’t pay to much attention to it, or they try to make us forget it. This was done affectively in CastAway, and even made sense (castaway.theme == loneliness, whereas ai.theme == journey). So, if you just walked into the movie at this point, it’s okay. The filmmakers left THAT end of it open too. Nice.
Now the movie takes an interesting turn, and one that could make an interesting movie in itself. The beginning of the movie could have been a movie by itself, but I sure as hell wouldn’t have gone and seen THAT. In any case, the second chunk of the movie involves the seedy robo-underworld that is apparently not visible, or not spoken of in the suburbian bliss that was chunk #1. Gigolo Joe, (played wonderfully by Jude Law — see Gattaca), is of course, a Robo-Gigolo with the script from Singin’ In the Rain printed on his circuit boards. He dances, he sings, he bones like a madman. And then he’s framed all of the sudden by a murderer, which is pretty handy, considering he wouldn’t be exiled to the “Wood of Misfit Robots!”. As if the woods weren’t filled with dangerous hippies, bears, and gypsies, apparently it has become a stomping ground for forgotten/exiled robots, a latter-day Tijuana.
Then the movie takes an interesting turn, thematically speaking. The beginning was very lovy-dovey, with hints that some folks aren’t really comfortable with walking, talking, thinking, autonomous robots. Sure. Makes sense! But we don’t see that a good section of the populous is vehemently against their robot helpers. We are cordoned into a small setting, of a suburban household, with no real sense of the outside world. Now, while it is good to see from just Small Wonder’s POV now and again, it makes for a jarring transition, and made me lose hold of the initial theme of the love between mechano-boy and Mommy (especially since we don’t see Mommy again for more than an hour later).
So Gigolo Joe and cyber-anklebiter are in the woods (along with the plot-device toting Teddy). People hate robots. Especially old ones. So, much like the derelict cars underneath the oppressive treads of “BIGFOOT” or the “UNDERTAKER” monster-trucks, we destroy them in a ludicrous show of destruction, right? Right. Well, Gigolo and Bot-boy are surely doomed, eh? Well, after surviving what is quite possibly the most horrible guest actor voice-over (by Chris Rock, being the voice of an Al Jolson circa “The Jazz Singer” style man-servant robot), they are in the acid-bath pillory! But, oh no! That looks like a little boy! You can’t kill little boys, the crowd says! “Oh, but he’s just a robot! The MAN is making robots to replace your children! They are making machines that will not make juvenile mistakes! Open the pod bay doors, Hal!” Well, as you could probably tell, heartstrings were tugged, and Cybo-Tyke’s human oppressor is pelted with many a projectile, and RoboBoy escapes. Oh yeah!
Now, if you were a walking dildo, where would be the first place you would go? Well, i’d go to Rogue City, damnit! Well, Gigolo Joe takes the young, impressionable Electro-boy to FunkyTown, because Electro-Boy is looking for a blue fairy, which will turn his ePinocchio arse into a real boy, or so he thinks. So far, I’ve found that not only are Robo-Children impressionable, but stupid as well. I must get one. He will do my bidding. Which brings me to a side note. Are these little Plasto-Children anatomically correct? I should hope not. People get strange ideas. In any case, we are now on a Pinocchio-esque quest for the Emerald City, of some sort.
The police, meanwhile, are still searching for Gigolo Joe, the murderous cybo-ho. You wouldn’t know that, though, if i hadn’t told you. They are, trust me. This is just another seemingly forgotten about occurence, one of which pushes the movie along, ’cause it would move along on its own. Anyway, let us move on to “Disturbing Celebrity Voice-Over Cameo #2″. Playing the part of a franchised information-booth floating head called “Dr. Know” is Robin Williams. So, here we are, enjoying the Pinnochio story, and out pops the damned Genie. And as per usual, the animators have given Williams’ cartoon image much the same annoying exorbitancy that Williams unleashes when in public. I really worry about that guy. In any case, all credibility of the scene is thus lost, and we are informed that there is a guy at the end of the world who can change him into a REAL BOY. Oh, our prayers have been answered.
Exit the “Dr. Know” franchise, enter plot-propulsion device #342. The coppers are outside! They are looking for Joe! Run, Joe, Run! Be captured Joe! Thank goodness that for a split second in chunk #1 of the movie, you see little Robo-Rugrat playing with what appears to be the VERY same controls for the helicopter (amphibicopter, actually, which is REAL handy). This of course means that he can attempt to fly it. Oh, and Teddy is here. Let’s not forget about TEDDY. Ahhhhh! Robo-boy in helicopter! Spinning blades! Joe escapes! Yay! Thankfully Joe, being a gigolo, can fly a helicopter. “Oh, Ben, that last sentence didn’t make sense”. No shit. Neither does a Gigolo robot being able to fly a helicopter, thank you very much.
So we are flying to Man-hattan. The end of the veritable world where the Blue Fairy lives. Fly Joe, fly Teddy, fly Electro-Lad. Fly Fly Fly. Seconds later, we find our destination! Oh doctor! Where art thou? Oh no! It’s another Cyber-Boy. He looks just like me! Must control violent tendencies! I’m an individual! Thankfully, my want of robot violence is satiated (for the moment). Little Lectro-Lad goes buck-nuts on his twin “brother” with a lamp that looks like a cheese-grater. Ouch, not in the face!
Well, enter William Hurt, the creator of all this pre-teen cyber-madness. Oh, Cyber-Boy, you ARE an individual. Or, per se, and Individually wrapped cybo-o-drone, I mean. Let me walk off the set to “get the rest of my team,” and leave you alone in the lab, which apparently has doors that lead out onto 400 foot drops to the open sea (this is the end of the world). Oh, keep in mind that I don’t return with my “team”. Ever. Later! Don’t forget to send my royalty checks. Ol’ Willy Hurt is hurtin’ fo’ cash! Hep me!
So, there sits Cyber-boy, 400 ft above the risen sea. Gigolo Joey Joe has apparently left in the helicopter, as he is now flying around outside. No, Cybo, don’t fall to your doom! Don’t end the movie on an introspective point! Well, needless to say, facing the fact that he is in fact a boy replace-o-drone fashioned in the form of William Hurt’s long-lost son, he does the respectable thing and dives into the water, hopefully to never be seen again.
Damn you Gigolo Joe! You just couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? Oh no! Save the little boy. Goddamn it. Expertly fly/dive the amphibicopter and save him! (Meanwhile, where the hell is the “team” from the “company”? They are so technilogically advanced, they can’t even build some sort of crude raft/winch combination? Jesus. The Professor from Gilligan’s Island could have. Don’t go and rescue the only Cybo-Boy to ever be released into the public! Ignore him! We’ll make more!)
Well, the police opportunely show up to give Gigolo Joe a ride out of this god-forsaken hellish ending of a movie. Little Wonder still wants to find his “Blue Fairy”, which is apparently RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the “company”. In Coney Island! Thank goodness. Dive, Electro-Whiz, dive Teddy-Bear. Find the Blue Fairy. Stare at Blue Fairy. Fall, giant entrapment device! Wish in vain, Electro-ersatz-Pinnochio. End movie, Spielberg. End MOVIE! PLEASE!
Now, just when you think “the movie is over” and/or “how Kubrickian was that?”, this movie GOES ON! Apparently 2000 years is enough for the earth to move into another ICE-AGE, and the seas have frozen over. Aliens now roam the earth, on a dig. Hey! We found a robot boy here in frozen coney island! And a creepy gravel-voiced bear! Wow. Let’s use him as a bipedal Tivo, and check out the re-runs from 2000 years ago. Oh boy. Well, long, long, LONG story short, Robo-tyke is duped into believing that the Blue Fairy is real, and wishes that Mommy could come back. All of the sudden, the aliens speak English, inform Robo-kipper that they can’t bring back Mommy without DNA, and that if they do, she will only live for one day. Now, where the hell is that incorrigable Teddy?! Oh, that’s right. He’s busy pulling the plot-device out of his furry little ass. Oh, but Cybo-drone! Don’t forget that when you cut off Mommy’s hair on a dare from Otter-pop?! I was thankfully there to snatch up this handy little swatch of DNA! Yay. Mommy’s back. The earth has frozen over. End of story, a happy end. Sort of.
The end of Ben’s synopsis.
