Product Description

A futuristic story of David, a realistic robotic child who has real feelings and who desperately wants to become a human boy.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: PG13
Release Date: 30-JAN-2007
Media Type: DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8512 in DVD
• Brand: OSMENT,HALEY JOEL
• Released on: 2002-03-05
• Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 145 minutes

Amazon.com
History will place an asterisk next to A.I. as the film Stanley Kubrick might have directed. But let the record also show that Kubrick--after developing this project for some 15 years--wanted Steven Spielberg to helm this astonishing sci-fi rendition of Pinocchio, claiming (with good reason) that it veered closer to Spielberg's kinder, gentler sensibilities. Spielberg inherited the project (based on the Brian Aldiss short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long") after Kubrick's death in 1999, and the result is an astounding directorial hybrid. A flawed masterpiece of sorts, in which Spielberg's gift for wondrous enchantment often clashes (and sometimes melds) with Kubrick's harsher vision of humanity, the film spans near and distant futures with the fairy-tale adventures of an artificial boy named David (Haley Joel Osment), a marvel of cybernetic progress who wants only to be a real boy, loved by his mother in that happy place called home.

Echoes of Spielberg's Empire of the Sun are clearly heard as young David, shunned by his trial parents and tossed into an unfriendly world, is joined by fellow "mecha" Gigolo Joe (played with a dancer's agility by Jude Law) in his quest for a mother-and-child reunion. Parallels to Pinocchio intensify as David reaches "the end of the world" (a Manhattan flooded by melted polar ice caps), and a far-future epilogue propels A.I. into even deeper realms of wonder, even as it pulls Spielberg back to his comfort zone of sweetness and soothing sentiment. Some may lament the diffusion of Kubrick's original vision, but this is Spielberg's A.I. (complete with one of John Williams's finest scores), a film of astonishing technical wizardry that spans the spectrum of human emotions and offers just enough Kubrick to suggest that humanity's future is anything but guaranteed. --Jeff Shannon

Additional features
A perfect movie for the digital age, A.I. finds a natural home on DVD. The purity of the picture, its carefully composed color schemes, and the multifarious sound effects are accorded the pinpoint sharpness they deserve with the anamorphic 1.85:1 picture and DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, as is John Williams's thoughtful music score. On the first disc there's a short (12 minutes) yet revealing documentary, "Creating A.I.," but the meat of the extras appears on disc 2. Here there are interesting, well-made featurettes on acting, set design, costumes, lighting, sound design, music, and various aspects of the special effects: Stan Winston's remarkable robots (including Teddy, of course) and ILM's flawless CGI work. In addition, there are storyboards, photographs, and trailers. Finally, Steven Spielberg provides some rather sententious closing remarks ("I think that we have to be very careful about how we as a species use our genius"), but no director's commentary. --Mark Walker

From The New Yorker
An extraordinarily accomplished movie, but a failure. After dithering with this project for years, Stanley Kubrick bequeathed it to Steven Spielberg, who wrote his own screenplay after Kubrick's death. In the bleak world that remains after the polar ice cap has melted, David (Haley Joel Osment), a perfect-child robot programmed to love, so disturbs his neurotic mother (Frances O'Connor) that she turns him loose in the woods. There he hooks up with a friendly stud-gigolo robot (Jude Law, who is certainly more beautiful than anything human). At that point, the movie should have taken off as the story of a science-fiction Pinocchio-a toy who wants to be human-but "A.I." is surprisingly bitter. The robots are preyed upon by humans, who destroy them at disgusting W.W.F.-type revels called Flesh Fairs. One senses a Kubrickian joke: the humans are empty and cruel, the robots sensitive and noble. Yet it's a nonfunctioning irony, and perhaps the last example of Kubrick's famous misanthropy. Despite many touching and uncanny moments, and some extraordinary visual invention (the robots searching for new limbs and faces might have been created by Salvador Dalí), "A.I.," which appears to celebrate the end of human existence, leaves one in a depressed stupor. With Sam Robards and William Hurt. Cinematography by Janusz Kaminski. -David Denby
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Bleccchhh!
It would be difficult to suggest a director less-suited to the handling of Kubrick's work than Spielberg. Kubrick is cerebral, passionate, hallucinatory... Spielberg is prosaic, predictable, traditional. Kubrick likes to get under your skin with unsettling insights; Spielberg is the master of soapy drama and cheap-shot schlock.

Separately, each director rightly has his fans. Together... well, AI fully demonstrates just how disastrous the pairing could possibly be. It is a film without any redeeming merit whatsoever. Anything that Kubrick brought to the table is lost in a morass of Spielbergian sentimentality and a gush of glossy yet unappealing CGI special effects.

Spielberg has claimed that the (admittedly!) appalling Deus-ex-Machina ending was Kubrick's own. If so, we can only assume that Kubrick would have handled it very differently... or, in fact, that there was some sort of logical bridge that was not yet in place when Spielberg set to work. The first two hours of this film are nauseating and tedious beyond belief... but the ending is like an additional slap in the face, brilliantly emphasizing what an idiot you were to sit through the rest.

If you crave light entertainment, see Jaws, or Jurassic Park. If you want Kubrick, see A Clockwork Orange, or Paths of Glory. But if you value your time and your sanity at all, run a mile to avoid the embarrassing mess that is AI.

AMAZING - literally(...)
This film is sort of an adventure film with a fairy tale mixed into it. It was quite interestingly told, not AMAZING exactly, but somehow keeping my attention; the last half hour of this film, though, was just AMAZING! It was emotionally charged, filled with THE MOST visionary visuals I've seen in ANY film and by the time I left the theater I was completely satisfied. I haven't bought this film, partly b/c it ticks me off to know that so many people think this film is bad b/c they don't know HOW to think, and that the price of the DVD is so darn cheap, it's like buying it doesn't mean anything. I'm not the kind of person who can reproduce moments at will, like watching a film repeatedly and getting the same feelings from it each viewing, and this is just one of those films that was worth paying for at the theater, and was most enjoyed there, but does not need to be seen 10+ times.

Excellent dystopian work
As many wish to paint a bright future for us all. This work was a good depiction of what could be.

It begs the question: What defines "a real boy" or humanity?

Most of my family thought the end was sad, but given some thought, realized that it was actually good. It throws your emotions all over. You see the good, bad, and ugly in humanity. The emotions of David's "Mother" - well played. Take special note of when David is "Imprinted" his change in expression... That kid can act! It is no wonder he landed the lead in Second Hand Lions.

Some may find themselves lost in this film as there are some assumptions to what the audience may understand about the subject matter - Certainly in honor of Stanley Kubrick, but not as lost as you were with 2001: A Space Odyssey (he begged Spielberg to do the movie but didn't until after his death).

I thought this movie was excellent - My taste.
For the price; excellent for all.