Want to touch things I don't feel
Wanna hold on
And feel I belong
And how can they say I never change
They're the ones that stay the same
I'm the one now
Cause I'm Still Here"
- John Rzeznik, I'm Still Here
The filmography of Steven Spielberg is so stuffed to the brim with excellence that you're bound to get a wide variety of answers regarding which movie is his best. Some will choose one of his numerous high-quality blockbusters, another will choose one of his intimate dramas, there's oodles of strong cinema to choose from. One that had always struck me as garnering a more mixed reception as a kid was A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, a 2001 science-fiction drama that had terrible box office legs in its initial theatrical release and one that I always saw getting mocked for being overly cloying or its ending not working or any number of similar complaints. Over the years though, it seems to have become more and beloved, with the.....unique, let's say, critical personality Armond White being one of the film's most ardent supporters.
With all that in mind, I was curious to watch A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and where I landed on this critical spectrum. Would I find it as divisive as many did in its original theatrical release or would I be as absorbed as many have been by the film in recent years? Well, after watching it, I can handily say that A.I.: Artificial Intelligence isn't just great, it's an incredible achievement for a filmmaker not at all unfamiliar with creating sublime pieces of cinematic storytelling. This movie desperately needs to be ranked up there with the best of what Steven Spielberg can accomplish, it is truly a magnificent motion picture to behold.
A family is mourning. In a futuristic vision of American society, one where the polar ice caps have long since melted, many coastal cities have been lost to rising seas and robots are commonplace, Monica (Frances O'Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards) Swinton are a married couple trying to grapple with the fact that their child, Martin (Jake Thomas), may never wake up from a coma that he's been trapped in for years. The robotics company Henry works for may just have the perfect solution for the two of them; a robotic child, one capable of actually loving another human being. This robotic child's name is David (Haley Joel Osment) and he and Monica develop a special bond as mother-and-son in a rapid manner.
Their life is disrupted when Martin wakes up from his coma and immediately dislikes David. The two's sibling rivalry culminate in a poolside incident that leaves Monica and Henry feeling that there is no choice but to remove David from their lives. Monica leaves the young child out in the woods with no one but a teddy bear named Teddy (Jack Angel), sending David off on a journey to become humanity by way of The Blue Fairy a figure he remembers from Pinocchio, a story Monica read to him once. His journey to become human is a tragic one, not filled with numerous humorous characters but rather a bleak examination of a boy trying to navigate a world of selfishness and depravity.
That world of selfishness and depravity is marked by an incredible amount of thought that's been put into its construction. The futuristic society A.I: Artificial Intelligence presents is an endlessly fascinating one. Many other films taking place in a similar time period tend to go with one specific visual aesthetic for the entire world that movie takes place in, i.e. Earth is just one big city or it's all desolate desert landscapes, that kind of thing. But there's a wide array of environments in A.I.: Artificial Intelligence that lends it this sort of realism that reflects the similar amount of variety found in the various biomes in present day Earth. You've got the more conventional upper-class suburbia where Monica and Henry raise David, the far more rural-oriented Flesh Fair that looks like it takes place at any Southern county fair, the high-tech society of Rogue City, the post-apocalyptic water-ridden land Manhattan has become, there's always somewhere new to go to in this movie that's similarly always realized though brilliant production design.
Connecting these various domains on the dilapidated vision of Planet Earth is the element of human cruelty. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is not a movie with an idealistic vision of humanity, instead depicting the vast majority of the non-robotic people David encounters be incredible cruel and malicious, from adolescent bullies to the hundreds of human beings attending an event called the Flesh Fair (where robots are destroyed for the entertainment of humans). What I find interesting about this choices is that the various humans in this story are not cruel in a stylized manner, so that the audience can distance themselves from the people on-screen. Instead, the people exhibiting all this maliciousness recall actual human beings, showing how, even in the future, unsavory aspects of our species have endured into an age of rampant robotics.
Notice, for instance, how the individual attending an event where robots are destroyed for the entertainment of human beings, called The Flesh Fair, has the human crowd chanting "SAVE OUR JOBS!!!" as poor robots are forced to be burnt and suffer as American flags billow in the wind and references to aspects of Christianity are brought up in the event. Utilizing patriotism and surface-level Christian iconography to demonize a disenfranchised population all in the name of job protection? Does this sound familiar at all? A.I.: Artificial Intelligence is a true blue science-fiction tale, but the way it pervasively incorporates such a realistic portrayal of the underbelly of humanity makes it really come to life dramatically.
But amidst this world that has gone to self-absorbed hell and in the middle of it all is this kid who just wants to do whatever it takes to earn his mother's love. That kid is David, an astoundingly well-realized creation whose motives are as pure as driveled snow and who provides the perfect audience surrogate through a world that, like present-day Earth, is so full of cruelty and unspeakable horrors. Steven Spielberg's screenplay does an impeccable job making David feel like what he is; an incredibly vulnerable child plopped into a world he can't even begin to comprehend. Having David out on his own be solely driven by his desire to visit the Blue Fairy so that he can become human feels very much like what something an actual child with a one-track mind would come to and adds this melancholy vibe to the entire premise. There is no Blue Fairy, we, the viewer, know this explicitly. But it's the only thing keeping David going, it's the only way he can possibly imagine his mother taking him back (a similarly impossible task). And so, we root for him to continue on his quest, hoping he will find some semblance of happiness in the process. Haley Joel Osment's terrific performance, which balances the robotic aspects of the character while making David feel like a real human boy, is also an important factor into why this character works so incredibly well.
Along his journey, David meets Joe (Jude Law), a sex worker robot on the run from the law. This right here is an individual that allows Jude Law the chance to turn in handily the best performance of his career. Whether he's engaging in some tap-dancing (who knew Jude Law could do that so well?) or trying to be a helpful & wise companion to David, he's an engrossing presence who becomes an indispensable part of the story. Really, all of the characters in Spielberg's screenplay are like that with this feature firing on all cylinders to such a degree that no characters feel out of place. Everything in this story contributes to the movies overarching purpose of exploring one young boys futile quest to gain humanity in a corrupt world.
It's a powerful story told through some exemplary production design that makes A.I.: Artificial Intelligence truly feel like no other futuristic movie out there. Visually and thematically, this is a feature film that absorbs you for every second of its running time, especially during its climax that is able to introduce wholly new science-fiction elements and make it feel totally organic and at home with all of the past plot points. Maybe that's because those newly introduced aspects of the plot manage to fit perfectly into its melancholy atmosphere which gets heavily reinforced by an ending whose success can be, for lack of a more analytical description, perfectly summed up by how I was flat-out bawling for every second of the last few minutes of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.
I seriously feel like my super long review of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence still can't quite capture the numerous nuances that make this movie so engrossing, though I suppose the film itself and its incredible quality can speak for its own virtues better than anything I could hope to write. This is a riveting science-fiction motion picture that provides an unflinching look on the evils of humanity while also examining the glimmer of hope for our species found in something that isn't even human. David's quest for humanity, and his friendship with the likes of Joe and Teddy (the latter of which is also a tremendous accomplishment, working entirely as a mechanical but helpful aide to David rather than overly distracting comic relief), is enthralling and provides the kind of experience that will keep you thinking about its craftsmanship and underlying themes for eons to come. A.I.: Artificial Intelligence desperately needs to be recognized more as one of Steven Spielberg's greatest achievements as a storyteller and as a phenomenal masterpiece in its own right.
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