My movie watch on 4 January 2024 was one of the most delightful, engrossing, and achingly poignant futuristic sci fi films that I have viewed for a very long time. Namely, A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, released in 2001 by Warners Bros Pictures, and including collaborations with Stanley Kubrick, A.I. Artificial Intelligence is set in the 22nd Century. It stars in mesmerising form (as Spielberg's first and only choice for this role) a young Haley Joel Osment (he of "I see dead people" fame from The Sixth Sense, released 2 years previously) as robot boy David, the first in a major new android (aka Mecha) lineage – a humanoid robot that can truly love, created by computer genius Prof. Allen Hobby (William Hurt).
The movie intentionally plays out like a sci fi version of Pinocchio, having been loosely based upon a 1969 Pinocchio-inspired short story 'Supertoys Last All Summer Long', written by sci fi maestro Brian Aldiss. (Interestingly, this short story's film rights had originally been acquired by Stanley Kubrick, way back in the 1970s, but after failing to achieve success in its cinematic production he finally passed it over in 1995 to Spielberg, who began working on it in earnest following Kubrick's death in 1999, and dedicated the finished movie to him.)
For after hearing his human adoptive mother Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor) read the famous Carlo Collodi story Pinocchio to her real-life son Martin, David blindly believes the story to be true.
Consequently, after subsequently being abandoned by his mother once jealous Martin is fully recovered fron a near-fatal ailment and causes all manner of problems for him, and accompanied by loyal and self-aware Teddy, Martin's unwanted robot teddy bear (voiced by Jack Angel), David sets out to locate the Blue Fairy. During his quest, he encounters a law-fleeing gigolo android named Joe (Jude Law, providing some much-needed lightness to this movie's sometimes almost overpowering pathos).
Joe helps David look for the Blue Fairy, whom David fervently hopes will transform him into a real boy, because he believes that his mother will then love him like she loves Martin. And indeed, after being assisted by Joe and a holographic answer engine named Dr Know (voiced by Robin Williams), David does find the Blue Fairy, after a fashion – thanks to a race of immensely-advanced Mechas known as the Specialists (one of whom is voiced by Ben Kingsley).
They discover him and Teddy frozen in ice two thousand years later, long after humans have died out during a new Ice Age (so much for global warming!), and not only successfully revive them but also recreate from David's memories an interactive version of the Blue Fairy (voiced by Meryl Streep).
Moreover, these Specialists are even able to restore David's mother to life, albeit for just a single day, after cloning her from her DNA (preserved in a strand of her hair that David had clipped back when he and Teddy had lived with her, and which Teddy had kept safe ever since). Now, during this most precious day back with his temporarily-restored mother, David enjoys with her the only birthday party he has ever known, and just as the day is ending his mother tells him that she has always loved him, thus giving him the assurance that he has always yearned for, and enabling him to be finally content. Then she slips into eternal sleep, and David, for the very first time, also falls asleep, journeying at last to the land where dreams are born.
To say that I found this closing scene moving would be the understatement of the millennium, but it also brought back some very precious memories, borne sweetly upon the haunting music score of this movie, composed by the indefatigable John Williams (who received an Oscar nomination for it). A.I. Artificial Intelligence is an enchanting film that I shall long remember, and for all the right reasons.
Tomorrow is the eleventh anniversary of my own dear mother's passing, so it seemed a very appropriate, fitting time for me to present this particular movie review of mine. God bless you, little Mom, how I wish with all my heart that you were still here with me, even if it were only for 24 hours – how I would cherish those precious hours with you, forever.
If you wish to experience a very special preview of the cinematic magic and wonder awaiting you in A.I. Artificial Intelligence, be sure to click here to watch a trailer for this movie on YouTube.
Finally: to view a complete chronological listing of all of my Shuker In MovieLand blog's other film reviews and articles (each one instantly accessible via a direct clickable link), please click HERE, and please click HERE to view a complete fully-clickable alphabetical listing of them.
