This has to be one of the most amazingly confusing films i've ever seen. You can watch A.I on two levels; you can let spielberg take you on an epic emotional ride, or you can really look at the film and what it all means. This film is a manipulative masterpiece. It bends you and pulls you in all different directions so that by the end you don't know what's going on. When i saw this film first, i felt dazed, confused, and abused. I think spielberg crosses the line in trying to make the story touching (although he didn't really need to try), and ended up making it sadistic. When you try to make sense of ai emotionally, it;s all over the place, characters motivations don't really seem to be thought out. The story is bizarre in places and unbelievable, yet you almost don't see it because spielberg is so adept at manipulating the audience. While carried away on the emotion and the stirring music, it's difficult to look at what's going on objectively. Ai makes you feel incredibly emotionally involved, yet there is always a niggling doubt about how much sense the film actually makes. Underneath all the dripping emotion Spielberg has laid on, AI's story takes unbelievable twists and turns, it has THE worst voice over ever written, and the treatment of the boy by everyone in the film and fate itself is so cruel and sadistic when you actually think about it that it is incredible that this is supposed to be a kids film?! AI has to be seen to be believed, despite how cruel it is to its central character in order to make us cry. It's half the best film ive ever seen, half the worst, most bizzare film ive ever seen.
Review of A.I. Artificial Intelligence
