Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here. Just wanted to add my two cents after calling Harry. Just spoke with a trusted source, and I am going to say that the review below is 100% false. That it was cobbled together from trailer images and speculation, and nothing more. For one thing, we broke the story last year that Robin Williams was in the film as "Mr. Information," a narrator of an educational film within the film, and we ran a story last month from an MIT screening of the film's opening that doesn't match the information below at all. Harry stopped reading to protect himself from spoilers, and I can understand why. Feel free to read it now, since it appears to be the rantings of a fanboy with too much time on his hands.
On second thought... why would you want to read that? Anyway... here's the original article...
Hey folks, Harry here... This review details far far far far too much of what happens in A.I. I got about 1/3rd through before I stopped reading... TOO MUCH INFORMATION... I DON'T WANT TO KNOW THIS MUCH... I recommend to everyone... even SPOILER readers... to keep this movie pure. Read a third if you must, but I tell you... I learned something in the 2nd paragraph of plot description that sent a chill down my spine and was too much information. If you must read, go on.... However, for those that just want to know how the film is.... Apparently it's brilliant and Haley Joel Osment delivers the best performance by a child actor in the history of films that this reviewer has seen child actors acting in. Here you go... read at your own risk! Also be forewarned that the review could very well be fake... Like I said, I didn't read the whole thing because I don't want spoilers on A.I. SO... is this more A.I. misleading tactics? Could be, but I can't say as I don't want to read anything on A.I.
Harry,
I'm writing to you here risking literal life and limb from an undisclosed location (University in California, and that's as far as I want to go with that!) about a major, super, stupendous film that me and a select few in the quiet sleepy hamlet I live in had the chance to see. Now, I first want to warn you that what I have seen is still fresh in my memory, and it may not make sense here as I write it, but hopefully you can patch it together, but I will try and make it as cohesive as possible. What I viewed, and what our small unit of humans here viewed, is a film I believe will put the film world on it's head, and for the reasons you may think. The usual suspects in this film, the special effects, story, are all tip-top to be sure, but the real relevation is the acting. Haley Joel Osment has probably given the best performance by a child-actor ever in a motion picture, and I thought he blew everyone else out of the water, including Judd Law (who wasn't bad himself).
To begin, let's just say that I attend a University, where film is a major concern, and your major could be film. I was hand selected from my study group to attend a 'special viewing' of an upcoming film in our school's film symposium. I've been in that place maybe 2 times in the past (my major being psychology), but I must say it is a very well constructed theater. There were about 20 other people inside, most of them up front and a handful that were being ushered in and 'selected' their seats. I was given a seat towards the middle (my favorite) and was handed a flyer that had wierd hologram designs on it, and the letters A.I. in glittering silver on the front. I wasn't really interested in this as I was in the people sitting up front, a guy in a blue baseball cap with glasses! I thought to myself, jeez, that looks a lot like Steven Spielberg, and you know what , call me crazy, it was him. First, the director of the symposium hall made an announcement (some short squat bald guy I didn't really like) in a high pitch voice, then he introduced some others. Then, dum dum dum, he introduced mister Spielberg, who stood up and smiled to everyone. He didn't say anything at first (in the end, he stood up and took the mic), and I was a little put off but still hyped for the film.
The lights went down and I stopped breathing. Everyone was locked on the screen, and I was still looking down front trying to make out Speilberg's expression (he was gesturing to the screen about something). It's here Harry, that I want to warn your readers of some spoilers I think will enlighten us all as to the movie they are waiting for. I wasn't waiting for it, I was simply trying to read up for my final when some guy talked me into seeing it in the library. Here we go...
The title credits were of a warning to the audience about a password, where you could see the reflection of Haley's face. I suppose he is the one who entered the password, because then the screen splintered apart and reformed into the words A.I. with a vocodered voice talking about the future. He said something about the population and environment, and then mentioned New York city, and as he was speaking the camera flew down to the edge of the 'I' in the title and it turned into Manhattan. The camera levels out and you can only see the tips of skyscrapers as the camera volleys through them very quickly. The voice continues and starts trailing off into some number sequence, reading them very quickly like, "19292938324948" until I couldn't make them out anymore. Then, the camera rests to the top of, I think, one of World Trade center towers. This is where it gets really freaky.
There is this , what I think is a spaceship type of vehicle, and these half machine creatures walking around on four mechanical legs, each of their faces in a sort of plastic casing (yeah, I thought it was wierd too). They speak in number sequences, but really fast, and there was subtitles in this part, which was surprisingly short. The camera is then from way up high, and we see some wreckage and bodies all strewn about on the top of this building, and the creatures are walking and using this sparking type of instrument (it was slick and metallic, and they placed it to the temples of these android things). One of the creatures comes across a strange looking body that has no flesh or anything distinguishing it. It is small like a boy's, and when one of these creatures 'sparks' it, he looks up and has a sort of 'I've just had the best piss of my life' look, and turns and speaks to the others. He says "I think this one still has life within him".
They pick up and place him within the vehicle they arrived in, which looks like a cross between a submarine and a helicopter. They get in, and place the kid in a cold storage locker type thing. They then proceed to enter his mind, through this wierd type of machine that encapsulates the wierd bird-like creatures' heads, and one of them enters a V.R. world (okay, matrix parallels end here). We see, now dont cream your shorts or anything, Robin Williams as a scientist guy, who finds what looks like Haley's face in this strange V.R. world (it's like floating in a white space). He finds his masks and places it on, and we see Robin's eyes roll back and are replaced by these ghostly blue ones. At this point, nothing is really explained, and I was just shocked by the visuals alone.
The screen goes black, and not we are within this factory type place, following the manufacturing of an andriod type of being. This sequence is incredibly well done, and probably my favorite of the film. It's Haley, and we see his father/creator for the first time, whose name escapes me now. He introduces his new kid to his wife, who is a little wierd herself, but her face lights up when she sees him for the first time. At this point, everything around where the mom lives looks like a beautiful, country-home type place in a suburban setting, which it is, for a little while at least. We follow Haley through his childhood briefly, and there is a funny part during his birthday where he gets into a philosophical discussion about why he should blow out the candles with his dad, who is like a super-smart scientist (Haley was worried about pollution from the candle smoke, and the dad lied to him saying they were oxygen producing birthday candles). The mother was always there, but you could sense some isolation between Haley (who is called David, strangely, his name is never really said) and his mother. Until, he get's Teddy in another birthday.
Teddy is by far the funniest and cutest characters in awhile that I've seen, and he was a really good comic foil to his mother, who has this plastered straight face throughout the film. Teddy, I think, is completely CGI realized, and I was amazed that you couldn't really tell him from the fake from the real, it was completely seamless. Now, this is where Robin William's narration picks up at, and he, I suppose, is speaking as though he were David, but I'm not sure, maybe he thinks he is David because he is inside of his mind in the V.R. Well, it seems that the rift between his mother and he is growing larger, and she begins ignoring him altogether, and he turns to Teddy for all the affection. Teddy is not all there though because he sometimes answers a question with a question (One time, David asks him what love is, and teddy says something like, "Is love what love really is?"). David tries being a normal kid too, and is warned by his mother that the world is a terrible and gruesome place, and he looks out the window and sees roses swaying in the breeze, so she is obviously lying to him, or is she? David begins to distrust her, and he sees even less of his father (He is busy testing and constructing different do-gads and hickeys, and we never really see what it is he is working at, only that he is working and ignoring his family, is what it seems like).
Finally, David decides to escape his life one day, after his mother tears up a stack of his drawings in a heart-breaking moment while he is trying to say he loves her. He grabs teddy and takes, oh yes, he takes these cool pair of goggle glasses that his mother uses to look up the news and such (amazing CGI graphics here, showing the internet in something like 300 years from now, I forgot the date, everything is in symbolic representation and can be flipped like cards in a deck, it's really quite fascinating and I wished they would have shown more here). Well, he escapes, and his mother has a change of heart I guess and tries to contact the husband, who at this time is giving a speech to some businessmen. He is demonstrating the latest line of androids, and this one really foxy android is being displayed (yes, no clothing), and he presses some buttons and her face explodes out and shows these little innerworking electronic instruments, and then passes around her 'brain' I guess. Well, after that, he goes into his office and hears some crying, and it's his wife! I thought, oh shit, how did she get there, and after they have a yelling match about David, with her saying how she cant stand him anymore, she turns around and dissolves as a hologram would do (very cool visuals) into the wall.
We go back to David who is still running away from home, and he is really getting no where, because the neighborhood he lives in extends for miles and miles, and he never reaches an end. He finally is exhausted and reaches a house under construction, and teddy says he can smell fear. This part is really intense, as David is freaking out, throwing boards and bricks around, and finally sits down and starts to cry. Teddy is freaked out too, and he tries to 'make things better' and putting bricks up and boards back where they were. Just then, he collapses into the floor, and we hear a rushing sound, sort of like a whistling. David gets up and looks down, and sees Teddy hanging on for dear life as the world beneath him looks like some kind of smog-ladden hell. He grabs for teddy, but teddy slips and descends (with a blood curdling scream), into the dust cloud below. David is crying now, screaming for Teddy, and finally decides to jump down after him.
This is probably where millions of dollars in CGI went into, because he see from David's perspective, him falling through this smog layer, into and through this futuristic city scape with floating billboard and holographic signs, with flying vehicles everywhere. He slides down this building's side, after what seems a minute (and I noticed, that the holographic symbol ontop of this building looked a lot like the company symbol his dad works at, and he descends even further until he reaches the very very bottom, which is raining at this point. All turns black, and there is a point where we hear the strange number speaking beings from the beginning only briefly. Then we see David floating down in the middle of some blackness, and he has a dream about his mother, who disappears and reappears, and sees his house floating by him (this part reminded me of the Wizard of OZ when dorothy has her dream about the tornado, and maybe this is what Speilberg and Co. had in mind with this). He is eventually salvaged by this crab like robot, who is I guess a scavenger at the bottom of this lake in the middle of the city. He is taken, by way of a 'dump-climber', a vehicle that climbs some poles and has a compartment in the back that carries trash and other debris. He is placed in this garbage holder vessle, that is strangely hanging off the side of one of the skyscrappers, and this part is really cool because we see other vehicle/bug like things climbing and crawling over the buildings.
David regains consciousness and remembers that he must find Teddy, so, he climbs out of the garbage and jumps onto a 'dump-climber' type of vehicle, and rides it to the top of one building. He get's off and proceeds to walk the 'street's of what looks like a major metropolis ( I suspected New York, and was right when I saw the taxi cabs and eventually the Statue of Liberty). The streets are lining the top of the buildings, and in this sequence, it reminds me a lot of Phantom Menace and it's superopolis. He runs around, frantically, looking for Teddy, and there is a funny moment where he is getting chased by some camera-like robot (we later learn and see him on the TV screen later, I guess they have robots who make T.V. shows in the future) and jumps from car to car in effort to escape this creature. He is eventually caught for evading entertainment (which I guess is a crime in the future!) and we see all the people who were watching him run go from smiling and laughing to crying and sad within just a moment and he is asked if he is Orga or Mecha. He is confused by the question and is escorted to the Mecha portion of the police station, where we see a blue android type of being with huge arms pummel and attack several police officers, who proceed to shock it into submission (I was sort of sad to see it treated so badly).
He is pushed, really hard (he smashes into the wall) into a holding cell, and just lies down and cries. Looking up, he sees these half human, half machine type of creatures (some of them look completely human) and he at first is shocked by them. He askes them all, kind of pathetically, if they had seen Teddy, but they all have no clue. By this time,we see several other machines pushed into the same cramped cell, and I myself started to hate humans (they treat the machines like shit!). Well, long story short, he meets Giggolo Joe (the Jude Law character), and he is sitting aloof in the corner, and David is drawn to him because he says he knows where Teddy is. He asks David if Teddy was a Mecha, and David doesn't know and starts crying again, and Joe gives him a hug.
Well, Joe gets his parole or something (a flying bot enters the cell and produces a pink slip, which says that he is free), and by this time, David and him have a sort of bond forming. David has by now calmed down (I think a year passed, but I'm not sure, and David never ages by the way) and is now everyone's friend. He get's his slip one night, and it kicked out into the streets again, where we see that same damn eye-robot again! He follows right up next to David, and David runs again, he finally gets in a cab and escapes from the bot. The Cab takes him up, way up, and they stop someplace, but David has no money so he runs from the cab. The cabbie gets out but is immediately knocked out by the eye-bot creature who jumps from the top (that sneaky bastard was on the roof the whole time!!) and David keeps running. David runs into this wierd robot red-light district place, and he runs up some stairs into a hallway. David is not even breathing, which I found strange and this whole time he is breathless. In the hallway, we see the eye-bot charge him, the eyeball red with rage (really quite scary), and this fist comes out of no where and the eye-bot's lense explodes, right in front of David. It's his buddy, Giggolo Joe! Long story short again(I know guys, this is a lot of detail, but I just have to relate this all) and they hitch up and begin a sort of father-son friendship thing. Joe is really aloof to this relationship though, and it's heartbreaking because David really loves his new friend. He forgets about Teddy for a long time, and him and Joe (Joe has a plan to leave the city and his life and go live on an island someplace in the 'ocean'. They finally do leave, and the outside world really is bleak and dirty (piles of trash go for miles).
Well, Joe is on the run from some humans who found out he was actually a robot when they had,um, relations with him, so they hitch up with this rogue band of humans, sort of in the vein of mad max thunderdome, but with wierd spray paint and mechanical devices on them (bionic?). They stay in the human camp and go to a festival/gladiator rink place for entertainment I guess. This part is really hard to describe, because it really hit me emotionally. There is this open pit place where robots are forced to face off each other (one face off showed two bots ripping each of limb from limb, black oil shooting out of their wounds instead of red blood). Well, David and Joe are sitting in the crowd, and they are watching the event, when they bring out some familiar robot creature to fight, which happens to be Teddy. Teddy is forced to fight with this evil black looking helmeted robot thing with sharp claws, and David runs down to the edge of the rink to try and stop the fight. Joe runs after and covers his mouth so that he doesn't scream out, and teddy sees David for a brief moment before he is shredded to death. David finally goes out and collects Teddy's shredded remains and cries into them (trust me, there wasn't a dry eye in the theater at this point).
Well, the humans start to suspect foul play, and they call on Joe to fight with a robot, after the same black robot goes up to him and Joe just pushes the creature across the rink like it was nothing. David and Joe now have to face off several creatures who come out, one of them that looks like the fucking green hulk, but they manage to escape by climbing onto a some motorcycles after they flee under the staduim place. They flee into the forest area and the human chase after them in a great sequence that rivals the Return of the Jedi/Endore moon hover cycle sequence. They eventually find a place to sleep, and Joe and David are now closer than ever, with Joe singing lullabyes to David and rocking him to sleep. This is where the story slows down a bit, and they do some flashbacks to the 20th century as Joe tells David the story of how robots were made (a very interesting montage of images). In the morning, David and Joe go out and look for some other friendlier life (funny, they never talk about food), and they meet some forest creatures (at this point, I dont know or trust what is mecha or what is really biological!) They find a house, of what seems like they walked for 50 years, at least, that's the way the sequence shows, but it may have been a few weeks or days since they never age. Inside the house, we meet an older guru type of guy who dispenses these strange sayings like "Those who give life, give death life as well", and that's the only one I can remember. He ends up being the creator of A.I., after David does some snooping around the house and finds robots and volumes of books written, what looks like in hand and in code. The guru explains that this is the code for consciousness, and is now owned by a company in the city ( I assume he is talking about the company his father works at). Making a long story short again, Joe, David, and the unnamed Guru decide to leave by way of this super vehicle (blue), and fly into the city to go to this home for wayward droids, as the Guru details to them.
The place they actually go is a deactivating dump within the building his father works at, and Joe and David together fight their way out and decide to pay his father a visit. They crash in on the dad as he is making love to a Digi-Gal (a robot prostitute I guess), and they kidnap the dad and try to force him to end his company and regime (apparently, and this is evident throughout the film, that mechas are considered sub-human and are treated like shit), and the dad tries a 180-turnaround and cries to David that he really loved him all along, and that since his wife couldn't have kids they made a son robot (a really touching moment). Well, it seems that the dad was a benedict arnold, and calls up some guardian bots to kill Joe and David.
They fight them off in a spectacular battle that ends up on the roof of the building (the name is still unsaid, only a bright holographic design), and the dad ends up being killed by Joe, who is fatally wounded himself from a battle with his dad (who had on bionic arms which increased his strengh ten-fold). Joe is about to die, and David is frightened beyond words, so he goes and gets a flying craft to bring Joe up to the home where he lives.
He gets Joe aboard and looks up to what looks like a brilliantly glowing tree that stands herculian over the cityscape. It is apparently a tree that holds in individual holographic biomes where David originally lived. They crash through the bottom of one and the hole they create gets larger and larger, and they reach David's home finally. David looks over to Joe and he has almost died, and Joe whispers to him that he sees a light and feels the presence of God. David gets out of the craft (which is parked on his front lawn), and we see his mother watering the 'roses', and he approaches her slowly. The music here is striking, and Haley does an excellent job delievering the emotional cues (this should garner him a much deserved Academy Award). Just as he reaches his mother, the sky and their world disappears into the outside world, which is of course emersed in the dark haze of dust.
Finally, the water and the roses disperse in a cool particle faze-out thing, and they are left holding each other, having found their eternal love at last. The camera then pulls back from his mother's expression, and then pans to David's face looking straight into the camera, as the outlines of his features spray out white rays of light, and the world turns blinding white as the mask Robin Williams put on in the beginning floats off of his face, and he holds it tenderly, then casts it off into the V.R. world. This is the very end of the film, as he looks upwards and the light emerses his body, then there is a message for Stanely Kubrick by Steven that goes something like "The stars will be blessed with your brilliance good friend," and the credits start up, saying Concieved of by Stanely Kubrick, then directed by Spielberg, and I suppose this is because Kubrick had died before this project was made (as I had learned later through research into this movie after having seen it). Steven made an emotional statement after the viewing and I think everyone was touched to the point of crying (as was I).
Well, I'm really tired at this point, and if you think this movie will be great, you are absolutely correct, so make your own judgements. Thank you for reading,
Yours,
Anonymous fan.
