Opinion

A.I.

Dir: Steve Spielberg
Starring: Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Sam Robards

"I am in so much trouble."

Monica and Henry Swinton live in a world "after the ice-caps melted", when many cities have been flooded, and as a consequence of living space and resource restrictions, couples can only have children if they succeed in a government lottery. Monica and Henry have a son, Martin, but he is in cryogenic suspension in case medicine can one day cure him. Henry's company produces 'Mechas', robot people, and their latest experiment is a little boy robot who can feel real love. The couple are given David for his trial run with a family, and soon Monica activates the imprinting of David's love for her. The question is, in making a mecha who can love, have they also created one who can be loved?

Where to begin reviewing a film that comes complete with the baggage this one has? Kubrick's great unmade work has acquired a mythology about it that makes it hard to go into with no expectations or preconceptions, but let's see how I can do.

To begin with, let's get the superlatives out of the way: Osment's performance is astonishing. He is utterly convincing as David both before and after his emotional imprinting, and gives the film an emotional heart that, to be fair, marks it out as much more Spielberg's film than Kubrick's. The kind of robotic mentality that can fixate on a goal and persue it to 'the end of the world' and for, well, without giving anything away to those who might not know yet, for quite a few years, seems absolutely natural to the character as he is played. The boy is a major talent, which I hope will let him get past the child-star barriers that have held back so many of his predecessors. Also stunning is the film's depiction of Manhattan at two different stages in its history, neither of which is remotely like the present day.

But A.I. is a film with huge problems. To begin with, all the human members of the Swinton family are thoroughly unlikeable characters. This, while making David's desperate need to be loved by Monica all the more tragic, also makes the first segment of the film extremely hard going, lightened only by the inclusion of the SuperToy, Teddy. Having been told that the emotional imprinting is unbreakable, and that if they ever subsequently decide they don't want him David will have to be destroyed, the family then pretty much disregard him, even before another focus for their emotions comes along. Some of the responsibility for the depiction of the parents as callous and irresponsible has to lie with Spielberg, as the way the story is written and edited, Monica appears to spend about five minutes with the robot before making him imprint on her.

As has been remarked by other reviewers, this is a film of three parts, and each seems to belong in a different movie. The middle segment, in which a lost David becomes involved with a lover robot called Joe (Law) might as well take place on a different planet than the domestically-set first hour. Robot-trashing arenas, neon-lit cities, holographic advice palaces, and police flying 'amphibicopters' make for a confusing, though visually impressive continuation of the story, ending in David effecively coming full circle to the place of his creation. Elements of the final sequence in this segment are both disturbing and emotionally affecting, and had the film ended here, it would have left the audience with a bittersweet, but probably generally positive view of David's story.

However, it doesn't end there, and of the 30 or so minutes that remain, apart from stunning effects, and a view of the future development of the world that is audacious, though not entirely original, far too much is given over to an unconvincing and frankly mawkish 'special day' that David has. Matters are made worse by the patronising and entirely unnecessary narration, which Spielberg seems to use for no other reason than to stop the film's already overlong running time getting any more out of hand.

Let's be fair - much is said about Spielberg having ruined Kubrick's vision for the film, which misses the point the Kubrick himself commissioned the screenplay before his death, so we have to make some assumptions about the general plot and structure of the film being at least close to what he intended. There are, in fact, touches of a slightly edgier tone in the first segment (both David and Teddy initially have an air of potential menace about them that is at odds with the rest of the film) that come across as an effort to bring something of Kubrick to the film, but they're far too few.

Plotwise too, the film would benefit from a few more immediate explanations: One passing comment early on about there being some anti-Mecha sentiment around seems inadequate to describe the all-out festival of violent destruction that comes later; it's never explained why a robot child designed to fill childless homes with love is only given the ability to emotionally imprint with one parent, not two; as David's body seems to be patterned on the dead child of his inventor, why doesn't he road-test the robot himself, since he at least will presumably be able to make an emotional connection to the physical shell? There are other areas where more explanation would have benefited the film, but they're too closely tied to the plot to discuss without spoiling. The film also fails to deliver answers to the questions it seems to be setting out to address, about the nature of love, and whether manufactured love can ever be real, or returned.

This is, despite everything I've said, an important film on several levels, and should not be dismissed out of hand. But it's also one that I can't honestly say would lose much on video, which may be the best medium on which to view it. At least then you can pause it and take a break to fortify yourself before the final segment's schmaltz-overload. Diabetics beware.