FILM REVIEW - A I
This is a good film which will spark
debate on not only the story but on how much is Kubrick and how much is
Spielberg.
The plot actually changes style and pace several times, from straightforward
Twilight Zone style android boy meets human family to
blade-runner-esque rights of robots to fairy tale allegory to Olaf Stapledon vision of the distant post-human
future. It is not a happy
film, it is surprisingly depressing but also (to quote SK) Something wonderful.
The film starts slowly with a robotics expert eulogising on whether it is
possible to make a robot capable of love, with one
female robot in the audience being opened up to show the astonishing inner look
of her cybernetic head, (very nicely visualised), 20 years on, the
project is complete and David is adopted by his carefully selected new parents
in a future ravaged by greenhouse effects, where Venice,
Amsterdam and New York have disappeared under the rising seas, and pregnancy is
only allowed for those who win the lottery.
David (the AI unit) is adopted by parents who have had a son, but lost him to a
coma in a terrible accident, and David looks just like him ) The
boy is given on a trial period after which his parents must decide whether to
encode him with an imprinting programme which will mean his
programming can never be erased and he will be forever theirs, and after which
they can only deactivate him by sending him in for Destruction.
David's initial inquisitiveness to watch his mum's every move initially freaks
her out, he even burst in on her while she's on the loo, and at one
point she locks him in a cupboard, (social services call anyone) but slowly she
warms to him, and uses the imprinting circuits, she reads him
Pinocchio which enthrals him, especially the metaphor of the blue fairy and
becoming a real boy. She also gives him a teddy bear, which is a robot one, and
actually
looks great, a sort of Ewok Jimminy Cricket, but used sparsely, as it waddles
so slowly and ineffectively after David, and proves mostly useless,
it kind of grows on you, soon after her real son recovers from his coma and is
sent home, clearly intensely jealous of David, the new/old son makes him break
things and even steal a lock of his mother's hair, David tries to eat food and
has to be operated on to repair his
damaged insides, and the human son eventually fights him and pushes him into a
swimming pool, falling in with him, David falls like a stone tot he
bottom of the pool, and everyone dives in desperately trying to free his human
doppelganger from his grip, and he hears them on the surface
resuscitating the boy while he is left down there, a stark reminder that he is
seen as an it rather than a person.
His Mother eventually takes David in a car (the futuristic cars look terrific,
effects are used sparsely rather than extreme fashion, a
rare thing for Speilberg) and dumps him in the woods, with the teddy bear, leading
to the film's most powerful scene, the scrap yard, where bits
of broken robot are dumped, and a host of various crippled and busted robots
appear scavenging for eyes, hands and limbs that fit, David joins the
misfits, but is captured with them and taken to a circus show where the crowd delights to see robots killed and blown
apart in various extreme
stunts, i.e., robot shot from cannon into cage containing other robots. David convinces
a young girl from audience that he is a human boy and she calls
on the owners to let him out of the cage before he is hurt, but they use intense
x-rays to see his inner workings and decide to use him in the
entertainments, but the crowd finds the sight of a boy (even though robotoid) being hurt for their fun too much
and as the ring-master asks who
will throw the first stone, they throw them at him instead, David escapes with
Jude Law who plays a poetry spouting bohemian robot programmed as a
gigolo (he doesn't really have much to do but the cameo is good) and they set
off on David's quest for the Blue Fairy, Law suggests they call
on Doctor Know (groan) who 'knows everything' Dr Know turns out to be a Geppetto
lookalike Internet programme obviously modelled on Ask Jeeves,
but where Internet information is an expensive commodity, (here done in superb
3D animation around the heroes) allows seven questions for a
price, and they waste questions phrasing them wrongly, but Dr. Know shows David
that there is a Blue Fairy in Manhattan, so David takes a
helicopter capable of submarine work too, to Manhattan Island where the crumbling
ruins of skyscrapers stick barely out of the water, and the
torch of the drowned statue of liberty is also barely visible, and goes down to the depths to seek the statue of the
Blue Fairy. Seeing it, David
is mesmerised and simply pleads with it over and over, with tears in his eyes
to make him a real boy. A large piece of debris crumbles trapping
his submarine there, and the mournful request is repeated as the voice over
says for 200 years, as we see the Earth covered in a new ice age,
David is thawed out by Extraordinary aliens, tall thin, metallic, benevolent, a grown version of the ones in
Close Encounters, their outsides
as polished as reflective glass, they see David as the one surviving unit of all
human history, and tap into his programming for archive footage, and
for a reward, they use the lock of hair taken of his Mum, to activate her DNA
and make her anew, which makes it all look on course for a happy
ending, ...... but she can only live for one day, David gets his dream, of one
happy day with his mum, without distractions, and as she finally
dies, he lies beside her and deactivates his programming, as the teddy bear sits
in eternal vigil watching over
them, lights in the house fade, credits roll...... Sob,
Done badly this would be Bicentennial Man all over again, but it works
beautifully, for me anyway, as a Kubric, as weird and
surreal and fantastic as 2001, and at times just as perplexing, the circus
scenes look like an Archaois event and show some touches of
Clockwork Orange, there are characteristic long tracking shots, the boy staring
at people reminiscent of the Shining, there remains a great deal of
the senior director here, the whole down beatedness of the thing is very different
for Spielberg, who has clearly learned much from the master,
there are lots of Spielbergiansisms too, lots of alien hand meet human hand
touches a la ET, Moon shots likewise, the scoop that dredges up the
robots in the scrap yard is his most Close Encounters Moment, definitely a bright
thoughtful film, that for Speiilly goes for allegory rather than
cheap crowd pleasing, I think Stan would be proud of him, - I will see this
again on the big screen for sure.
Arthur Chappell
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