Artificial Intelligence: AI

Released 2001
Reviewed July 09, 2002
Stars Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor, Sam Robards, Jake Thomas, Brendan Gleeson, William Hurt
Directed by Steven Spielberg

AI is an ambitious but flawed film about the nature of existence. It's an updated version of Pinocchio set in the distant future after the polar caps have melted due to global warming. Coastal cities around the world have been flooded, but the United States has survived. In fact, it's prospered due to its use of "mechas," which is short for mechanicals. In other words, robots. Due to limited resources, the government has had to control birth rates, which has made mechas indispensable. The movie opens with Professor Hobby (William Hurt) addressing his team of engineers at his cybernetics company, where he announces his wish to build a mecha who can genuinely love. Mechas are physically perfect, but they're emotionally stunted. Despite having self-awareness and being able to feel certain emotions, no one has been able to program a mecha to actually love another being. Hobby's mission is to build children mechas to give the many childless couples an alternative.

While he addresses his team, a woman asks the key question in the film, "If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that mecha in return?" I had exactly the same question before she asked it, and I was relieved to finally hear someone ask what responsibility we have to the artificial beings themselves. This question haunted me throughout the film, and it spawned countless ethical questions. All of those questions are predicated upon one fundamental philosophical question: is an artificial creation capable of genuine love? This question will split the audience, and, although I can think of good arguments on both sides, I come down firmly on the yes side. For me it comes down to the nature of existence. Our minds are the combination of electrical impulses and neural networks, and so is a computer. The only difference, really, is that our minds are natural and computers are artificial. Regardless of whether a being is artificial or real, if a being believes it feels emotions, doesn't it actually feel those emotions? Isn't the feeling in the believing?

The film cuts to 20 months later when the team has created their child mecha named David (Haley Joel Osment). The prototype is given to a company employee, Henry (Sam Robards), whose own child lies frozen cryogenically, waiting for an unspecified cure. The employee's wife, Monica (Frances O'Connor), resists David at first, since she doesn't want a replacement for her son. Eventually she gives in, however, and follows the imprinting process to have David accept her as his mother. The imprinting is a key factor in this movie, because it can't be reversed. If Monica chooses she no longer wishes to have him, David must be destroyed. Since I'm in the camp that believes David can truly feel, I found that requirement incredibly cruel. Once you make a being love unconditionally, is it acceptable to not allow that unconditional love to be reversed? What about when the mother passes away? The child mecha is left alone with no one to love. What if the mother rejects the child like Monica does later? The mecha's imprinting could simply be reversed or his chip could be replaced. Why force him to be destroyed? It's a plot device (one of many), but it makes the ethical discussions more interesting. Another thing that bothered me was what it would be like to have your child be ten years old forever? Every day I wish my kids could remain exactly like they are, but that wish assumes that my wife and I would also remain the same age. I'm not sure what it would be like to have an unchanging child for 40 to 50 years. We wouldn't accept this in today's society, but I think we would if it were our only choice to be parents. I know I would.

Haley Osment's performance is central to the film, and he's does an excellent job. He's able to portray David in such a manner that you never forget he's a mecha. I liked how his character was written and portrayed, because he wasn't indistinguishable from a human boy. He didn't have mastery of his emotions, and initially he was rather creepy as he learned what behavior was and wasn't acceptable. He was a true cross between a human and a robot, which made the ethical questions even more difficult. If he were indistinguishable from Martin, Monica and Henry's real son, there's no way you could justify destroying him. By giving him robotic attributes, it creates a larger gray area.

Due to easily explainable situations which aren't explained, Monica rejects David. Just before she returns him to the robotics company to be destroyed, however, she decides she can't do it. Near hysterics, she peels the crying David from her side and abandons him by the road like an unwanted dog. This is a tearful scene, and my sympathies were with David. Monica would have to deal with the guilt, but she had the capacity to do so. She had her real son back, and her pain and guilt would fade over time. This wasn't true for David, who was programmed to forever love her. He had no capacity to transfer that love to someone else or to allow that love to fade. He was stuck in the role of a little boy who had been abandoned by the mother he adored, and he had no way to change that.

After being abandoned, David recalls the story of Pinocchio, which Monica had read to him. He doesn't understand it's only a fairy-tale, and he believes the Blue Fairy can turn him into a real boy. If he becomes a real boy, he reasons, Monica will love him again. This sets him on a harrowing journey with Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) to find the Blue Fairy. I found this journey heartbreaking. He believes so fervently in something that doesn't exist, while we know there's no way for him to be reunited with his "mother." Eventually he finds a statue of the Blue Fairy, and he's locked into a situation where he begs her for 10,000 years to let him see him mommy again. It was a heart-wrenching scene, and it's where I would have ended the movie. At that point the initial question of responsibility to the mechas is at its strongest. To me, the pain David feels is real, because he believes it's real. He wasn't a disposable machine; he was an abandoned little boy who only wanted his mother. I lost my mother when I was young, and this scene reminded me of how I cried myself to sleep every night, wishing I could only see her one more time. I couldn't have survived 10,000 years stuck in that pain, and it tore me up.

I would have ended the movie at this point, but Spielberg tacks on almost another half-hour. He's fashioned his story as a fairy-tale, and he's determined to end it as one. The problem is it feels like a different movie at this point with the creatures reminiscent of Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and he continues past the film's emotional climax. I did appreciate the irony of how David was initially created to serve Monica, but in the end she was resurrected to serve him. It's an interesting twist, but I think Spielberg blew his opportunity to make a great film with this unabashedly sentimental ending. It undermines the rest of the film by glossing over the ethical questions, and it lets us off the hook emotionally. The ending just doesn't work with the rest of the film, but it does work on its own. On a personal level, I found it deeply affecting, because it was my fantasy come true. Just like David, I'd give anything to be hugged by my mom again and hear her say she loved me.

Reviewed by Bill Alward
July 09, 2002
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