: Artificial Intelligence
Director: Steven Spielberg
Huh? This film desperately needs some intelligence, artificial or not. I really wanted to like it. I’m a science fiction fan, and a huge robot fan. The promos for the film, telling us it’s about a little robot boy who is programmed to love — were a distinct turnoff. Exploring whether or not a robot’s love is real or not has been done to death and isn’t the slightest bit interesting (there’s no conclusive answer to the question anyway), but I decided to give the film a chance. To my surprise, the heart of the film initially appeared to be a much more intriguing question: not whether a robot could love, but whether humans could love a robot. A young couple, whose own son is in a permanent coma, receive a prototype of a little boy robot programmed to love. Naturally, the mother initially resists, but the robot’s so life-like and acts enough like a child that she eventually decides to adopt him permanently and treat him like a real child. Intriguing premise.
Unfortunately, that’s as far as the film went with that. From that point on, the movie deteriorates and wanders aimlessly, looking for a reason to exist. The robot boy, remembering the story of Pinochio, seeks for a fairy to turn him into a real boy. That could be interesting, but it’s not. The boy’s kidnapped by robot-haters, who want to destroy him, but he escapes and eventually connects with his creator. The ending I won’t reveal out of courtesy, but let’s just say it’s one of the most dissatisfying endings every filmed. Yes, it’s completely logical. It makes perfect robotic sense. But it’s horrible from an emotional perspective! It’s inhuman. Why is it that Hollywood likes to play fast and loose with scientific reality when it won’t affect the story, but when it makes the story depressing, they insist on verisimilitude? Crazy!
One last nitpick. You’d think with someone like Spielberg behind the picture they could at least create an interesting futuristic world for us to see. Instead, everything looks recycled from a 1930’s sci-fi flop, except in color. For example, look at the stupid tri-wheeled car the mom drives: you got it, drives. Here we are in a future society where robots are so human you almost can’t tell they’re machines and we still have to drive our own cars??! Please.
Bottom line: I liked Bicentennial Man better, if that tells you anything. The only thing good: I did like The Sixth Sense kid’s performance as the boy robot.
Topic: [/movie] |
