A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

2001 • 145 minutes

About this movie

In this dark, contemplative tale, an advanced prototype robot child named David (Haley Joel Osment) is programmed to show unconditional love. When his human family, unprepared for the consequences, abandons him, David embarks on a dangerous quest to become a real boy.

Ratings and reviews

At its core, it's a modern take on Pinocchio- An artificial boy who just wants to be loved by his "mother", his owner who programmed him into treating her as his mother and unconditionally loving her. David is a robot child designed for those who can't have an organic one. (In the world of A.I., the melting of the polar ice caps has made land and resources more scarce, so population control is strict. In order to have a child, you have to get a permit, which is hard to do.) David is given to a family whose organic child is stuck in a coma and has been for forever. He's treated as nothing more than a robot at first, before the mother decides to 'imprint' him, making him treat her as his mother- a process that is irreversible. Unfortunately, as soon as she does this, their real child wakes up from his coma. The family tries having the two kids live together, but after an incident where David almost drowns the other, the mother decides to abandon David. David, remembering his mother reading Pinocchio to him, then sets out to find the 'Blue Fairy' and have her turn him into a real boy. His adventure eventually leads him to drowned New York, where he gains access to a submarine and visits now-underwater Coney Island and their Blue Fairy statue, where he asks the Blue Fairy to make him a real boy. Over and over. With no response. He asks, hoping to get an answer, repeatedly, for several hundred years until the ocean freezes over and David along with it. I wish that was when it ended. Apparently Spielberg or Kubrick (who wrote the movie before passing away, leaving Spielberg to bring it to life) thought it would be a great idea to force an actual ending on us. (Inhales) If you need to bring aliens into your movie just to make it end, you have a serious problem with your ending. This ending is infamous for being unnecessary and just overall confusing, and it just really ruins the magic of the movie for you. It doesn't matter what happened next, it should've ended with David freezing over. The movie's ending is less satisfying, being one where the main character doesn't succeed in his quest, but at least it would've made sense. I don't know what Kubrick was smoking when making this movie, but he just shouldn't have. Or maybe it's just because I'm not a fan of Kubrick's work.

Completely unbelievable and divorced from all humanity. Cinematic beauty without a single touch of reality. Possibly one of the worst movies I've ever seen because it reverses the roles. Humans become the robots, and the robots are human. Child-like and one dimensional, I'm running out of words to write a more scathing review.

What will others judge us, or our society if not by the way we behave and how we treated others. If we don't like what we see does it really make this movie bad? Rent it..