Humanity is such a complex thing. But it’s also a powerful and necessary thing. The human ability to connect on an emotional level and express that in terms we can intelligently understand. And yet we do it all the time. So does that mean anything that can also do this is essentially human, or is humanity something only humans get to have?
A.I. is so complicated in what it is trying to say. But the most prominent story is as a modern retelling of Pinocchio with the android David (Haley Joel Osment) as the surrogate character to the puppet. David is the most advanced A.I. on the earth, an earth wracked by pain and catastrophe, and he’s learning to live in the world which causes him to come to value the ideas of love, but also to learn the hardships that come from that.
And the virtue of this movie is that David learns something far more valuable than empathy or compassion, he learns hope. He learns that hope is something to hold tight, and that there is always a way to go back to the things we love. But that journey will not always be easy, or simple, and doing so we must keep our hope, because otherwise it will wreck us.
And when hope fades, our ability to connect and love goes with it. Hope is what fuels will, and will is what fuels us to push through hardship, and that hardship without hope can cause us to take great lengths to protect ourselves from facing such hardship, and because of that need for safety, we actually make it harder to emotionally connect. And so without hope, we eventually lose that emotional understanding, and without that, we lose our humanity.
At the end of all this, the big lesson that David learns is that sometimes hope is a candle that must burn for a long time. It may grow very, very dim but never go out. And when if it ever does go out, then that hope must find a way to relight it. The movie’s big lesson is not that a machine can learn to be human, it’s that we, as humans, have the danger of losing what makes us human and eventually we will if we don’t remember to be emotionally connected, if we don’t remember to have hope.
So, let’s break everything down.
All Spielberg movies will be judged based on the same five pieces of criteria.
Acting – Are the performances good and do they serve the story or are they distracting and awkward?
Story and Dialogue – Does the story being told make sense and is the use of dialogue allow it to succeed or does the story struggle and/or the dialogue drag it down
Shooting and Editing – How is the camera used, how are the shots arranged, what other elements are used to enhance the movie?
Design – How does the movie look? Does it help the movie or hurt the movie?
Iconic Moment – Spielberg has made several big iconic moments throughout cinema, what are they, how many of them are there, and which ones stand out the most?
All these criteria will be judged on a score of 10 for a total score of 50.
So here is my breakdown of A.I. Artificial Intelligence:
Acting – Haley Joel Osment brings back feelings of Henry Thomas from E.T. He’s so talented and it shows in how he learns to grow into the humanity of David. Jude Law as Gigilo Joe and Frances O’Conner as Mom provide very solid supporting performances, but all in all it feels like many of the characters serve either no purpose or very little purpose in the long run. (8/10)
Story and Dialogue – As with the characters, the story is very muddled. It has far too much complexity and too many twists to stay coherent the entire time, and the Pinocchio metaphor is much too on the nose until it suddenly isn’t, that and several moments happen by luck and coincidence that they feel lost. (6/10)
Shooting and Editing – I love the look of this movie, it feels very much like a future we could actually see, but also the way Spielberg uses light in these shots really help set the different points in David’s journey apart from each other. It’s not the best detailed camera work but it is certainly noteworthy. (8/10)
Design – I actually really love how well designed most the movie is. I think the scenery is especially delicate but it also feels almost too unreal at times. And the costumes and other design elements seem so generic that it was almost like none of it mattered. Ultimately it has great potential but just missed the boat on the execution. (7/10)
Iconic Moment – There are not a lot of moments in this one that really stand out. It is consistent but never brilliant and because of that the most interesting moment, the conversation with the Blue Fairy hologram, just feels lacking when compared to many of Spielberg’s other works. (4/10)
Total Score: 31/50
Current Ranking:
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
Jurassic Park
Saving Private Ryan
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Schindler’s List
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Jaws
Hook
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Amistad
Duel
Empire of the Sun
The Lost World: Jurassic Park
The Color Purple
Twilight Zone: The Movie
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
The Sugarland Express
1941
Always
Science Fiction returns again next week but in a far different tone. With a true dystopian thriller fair better than a coming of age story? Only one real way to know for sure is to come back next week and keep reading.
So until then, thanks for taking the time to get Ploominated!
Ploominate 