Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)

A Masterpiece Sci-Fi movie - one of the best ever.
Somehow I missed this movie and it wasn't until a woman I met (who works on robots in a University Research Department in Seattle) recommended it to me after I told her about Bladerunner (another masterpiece Sci-Fi).

A.I. immediately became one of my favorite movies. The movie is so rich and packed with deep philosophical questions on topics such as love, dreams, happiness, etc. The acting is phenomenal. It's one of those movies where you would not want to see any character replaced because you fell in love with them and each character became so "real". The movie just kept developing and getting better. A.I. is definitely well underrated.

A.I. appeals to human emotions in a very special way. I was moved many times throughout this movie. It opens up doors to the reality of life and human nature. Jude Law as Joe and Haley Joel Osment as David (both robots) are unforgettable, and the dialogs they have are powerful. David argues for the innocent side of human nature that chooses to ignore reality and pursue a dream that is a pure fairy tale. Gigolo Joe fires back with a reality check in an effort to win David to his cause, perhaps with the hope have David alongside fighting for their own survival (the survival of robots) against humanity who is trying to destroy the "artificial beings".
David ends up saying "goodbye Joe" with an acting that demonstrates his understanding of what is happening and yet his choice to go pursue his dream which subconsciously he knows cannot be attained. So many of us can relate to this. Perhaps David knows that if he does not pursue his dream he has no reason to go on living. He is not motivated to fight the humans as Joe is because he was programmed to love his mother, so that is what he does. We humans are also programmed to do certain things and follow our dreams, as articulated in a dialog later in the movie by Prof. Hobby, who created David.

So David goes on pursuing his dream even though logic demonstrates that he cannot attain it. Or maybe he can? Maybe anything is possible? Maybe the realization of our dreams are not exactly how we imagine it to be? This is a powerful way that carries the movie to the end. David, who is a robot, still functions after 2,000 years have passed and when "revived" by the more advanced Robots that survived the ice-age, is still trying to become human or a "real boy", so he can win the love of his mother. This finally happens in a brilliant and unexpected way. He gets to spend a day with his mother, just him and her, in scenes that are very moving. This could be interpreted as a dream fabricated by the collective input of all the advanced robots that are present creating this "matrix world" based on information that was stored in David's "mind" from when he lived in the house with his parents. This day with his mother could be interpreted as a dream, but isn't life itself a dream? I think that ultimately we know that our lives are nothing but a dream, and yet we choose to think that it is real just as David did with his mother, for the pure enjoyment of those rare momemnts. When we realize how precious each moment of our life is, that is when we can truly enjoy each moment. That is when we are awake as opposed to unconscious (a paradox here). This is truly not a movie written for the entertainment of the masses, and perhaps that is why it has not gotten enormous appeal. Many aspects of the movie are unpleasant and hard to swallow, such as Manhattan covered by seawater due to global warming. This is not a typical Hollywood movie with the formula of happy ending that makes everyone feel good at the end.

Stanley Kubrick may be gone, but his work still lives. Steven Spielberg is still alive and many of us hope that he will continue to create movies like this that gets the viewer thinking and perhaps transformed, instead of the typical formula that works to entertain the masses and earn money in the box office. Stanley Kubrick may be gogne, but his spirit still lives through his work and the masterpieces he's created. I have yet to wath 2001 Space Odyssey, but other powerful movies such as Dr. Strangelove and even Full Metal Jacket are cult classics. A.I. is another example of the precious gifts we would get if Kubrick were still alive and making movies.

I recommend A.I. to anyone who enjoys philosophical topics, anyone who wants to expand his or her mind, anyone who likes to look at human life in the big scheme of things, and what could happen not just in our lifetime but in 2,000 years or more. A.I. is a powerful movie packed with great material and superb acting, a modern Sci-Fi piece that has become one of my favorites of all time.

A Robot Fairy Tale
[[ASIN:0141182083 R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (Penguin Classics)]]
was the original tale of a robot with an heart.
A robot with dreams and who can love, but is still a machine
is a sci fi ideal.
This film is sort of Asimov as Walt Disney:
the 2000 th year "blue fairy" makes the robot boy David
a real boy for just one day.
Somewhat contrived and sentimental compared to Star Trek's Data
it is well filmed effects wise and the acting is pretty good as well.
It is just maybe too Asimov...
All the humanity is pretty much drained from it.

Near faultless.
Thoughtful sci-fi story about a robot boy (played by Haley Joel Osment) who wants to become a real boy like in the story Pinocchio so that the woman who purchased him (whom he considers his mother) will love him like she loves her real son. An intelligent sci-fi tear jerker from Steven Spielberg who as usual knows exactly what he is doing. A near faultless movie - ruined only by subplots involving Jude Law that don't go anywhere and a final scene that I felt could have been a bit better - that is emotionally satisfying and far superior to I, Robot (a film with a similar theme of whether robots should be treated like human beings). Spielberg went on to make the also excellent Minority Report the following year, so he was clearly on a roll. Very nearly 5 stars out of 5.