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Re: A.I. Gripes (absolutely no OTR content)
> > I'd outline all the problems I had with it, but
> > I've written about them far too extensively in a number of
> > other forums, and I'm all AI-ed out.
> >
> Copy and paste, friend... or just push the "FWD" button.
Heh. Well, if you insist. Here's a bit of what I wrote about the film
elsewhere:
I thought the movie had some brilliant moments, and Haley Joel Osment is a
marvelous actor, but as a whole, the film just didn't work. It didn't have
the balls to explore the questions that it raised about humanity, God, love,
responsibility, selfishness, etc., and so it settled for a boring retread of
Pinocchio without any of the innocence or magic.
Robin William's "Doctor Know" was excruciatingly distracting, Gigolo Joe
(marvelously played by Jude Law) was a terrific character who was used as
needed and then conveniently lifted (literally!) out of the story - an utter
waste of both an interesting character and a smooth performance. The Flesh
Fair was like something out of a bad 80's B-movie (guys in glowing neon
suits with wolf-heads on their motorcycles - what is this, "The Karate Kid
2001"?).
The final act was a mish-mash of self-contradictory techno-babble and
heavy-handed exposition that played out as if the writer had painted himself
into a corner and didn't know how to get out. The super-evolved mechas were
a fairly blatant deus ex machina "solution" to a problem that was never
fully explored in the first place.
In addition to the structural problems, some of the dialogue in the movie
(especially early on) was truly, truly /awful/. As Peter was good enough to
point out in another forum, lines such as "Silly man. Of course I'm not
sure," and "I'm sorry I never told you about the world" were among the
worst, but there were a quite a few lines of that caliber.
This was all the more frustrating because the film really did touch on some
neat ideas, and could have been very provocative. I thought the film was
going to end when David threw himself into the ocean, and, as it turns out,
it would've been a /much/ better film if it had (not least because it would
have mirrored the pool scene from earlier, which was one of the best
sequences in the film, IMO). This material deserved a better movie.
On the up side, the movie was visually arresting. Spielberg still knows how
to construct a sympathetic hero, and he gets the very best out of Osment and
Law. There were several moments that had me choking up, which says a lot for
Osment's ability, because I wasn't emotionally involved in the movie at all.
I guess, overall, I thought it was an ambitious, beautiful, eloquent mess.
:P
It has also occurred to me that "Blade Runner" is everything that "A.I."
wanted to be. Both films are about real and artificial people sorting out
the
concepts of life and love and consciousness, but "Blade Runner" covered this
territory with a hand that was both subtler and more sure. Even today,
critics, fans and filmmakers continue to pay homage to Ridley Scott's moving
and intelligent landmark, which was both groundbreaking and maddening.
Spielberg's project will do better box-office, certainly, but I can't help
thinking that in 20 years, filmmakers aren't going to be referencing "A.I."
paul christian glenn | pcg at runbox_com
"between you and me
it's hard to ever really know who to trust
how to think
what to believe
between me and you
it's hard to ever really know who to choose
how to feel
what to do..."
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