A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Alright. This movie was somewhat uneven and not immune to flaws big and small, but it was also very interesting and extremely watchable. The long story behind this movie is that it was a Stanley Kubrick project in development hell for some thirty years. When Kubrick died in 1999, he passed the reins to Steven Spielberg. Spielberg fast-tracked it and it came out in 2001 as a Spielberg film, but most people had the understanding that it was a very Kubrickian film with some very strong hints of Spielberg. The result was a movie that was neither bleak and dystopian (Kubrick) nor hopeful and inspiring (Spielberg) but instead some strange sort of hybrid of the two. And it didn't work quite as well as it would have had the film been either wholly Spielberg's or wholly Kubrick's. Or at least, that was the common critical consensus in 2001. Spielberg has refuted this popular opinion as a misconception, claiming that many aspects of the movie most people attributed to him were actually Kubrick's doing, and vice versa. Now, sitting here ten years later at the tail end of a snow day (woo-hoo!), I feel the need to defend the Kubrick-Spielberg hybridism. Because that aspect of the movie worked very well. It felt more mature and thematic than most of Spielberg's sci-fi, and it also had a certain production value that I'd never seen in any of Kubrick's stuff. Although the movie was two and a half hours long, I only felt like three or four minutes of it were a waste of my time. There were three very distinct acts in this one too, and the third act takes a very surprising twist both out of whack with but also complementary of the first two hours of the movie. But then the ending just doesn't impress. It fits. It makes sense. But it doesn't really work as a satisfying capper to the preceding two and a half hours. It feels empty and weak - even though, again, it fits perfectly. I realize that must sound vague, but watch the movie in order to get a sense of what I'm talking about. I also think Jude Law was wasted on an uninteresting and ultimately irrelevant character who only appeared in the second act. I mean his character was just beyond pointless. Anyway, this movie is one that is worth watching, but don't expect it to blow you away or leave you completely satisfied.