Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: A.I. Artificial Intelligence

This is topic A.I. Artificial Intelligence in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Tom Petrov (Member # 1534) on 02-09-2011, 04:13 PM:

****

Now here is a movie by Steven Spielbery that I really, really liked. IMO it is a great movie but not it same "greatest" like E.T. or Close Encounters and such. This is his best movie since Saving Private Ryan.

I think what made it work so much was the sets and real life animatronics. I am not sure what was real or not (I have no intention of watching the special features), but it looked as if real sets, limited green screen at times and animatronics were used. There is a special credit to "Teddy" as designed by Stan Winston. Now I know there was a lot of CGI, but it is hard to tell at time what is real and what is not. Perhaps there were minatures?

I know A.I. was originally going to be made by Stanley Kubrick, as it seemed Spielberg made an emphasis on having a lot of detail in the sets. There is so much detail like a Kubrick film that I found interesting. I was hoping for more stedi-cam following shots like Kubrick trademarked.

The cinematography is impressive as there is a lot of interesting use of light, back lights, movements etc. The Flesh Hunting scenes souded great with a great score to it as well.

Casting is good. I am not a big fan of Haley Joel but I liked William Hurt, Jude Law and the mother played by Frances O'Connor was very good. The direction of actors by Spielbery is indeed impressive.

I watched A.I. right after I watched Minority Report and I found A.I. to be a far superior movie (it is more film-like than Minority Report which is more of a movie), more ambitious and a more interesting movie. Perhaps the greatest flaw to A.I. are there are some was that Spielberg could of made the ending a little less straightfoward and more vague-like and open to interpretation like Stanley Kubrick's other films.

I noticed that A.I. was nominated for two Oscars. The music by John Williams deserves one for sure. I would of object to just two Oscar noms as cinematography, editing, sound effect, production design (do they have one for this?) and sound effects editing could of had more.

I remember seeing A.I. back in 2001 in the large cinema at the Galaxy Cinemas in Peterborough, I sat in the middle of the row about half way up the stadium seating area. I remember liking it back then, and today, giving it a second watch right after Minority Report, I have realized I now like it even more .

DVD picture: ***1/2
Sound DTS: ***1/2 (far superior sound to Minority Report)

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 02-09-2011, 04:32 PM:

My review of it (from my website):

quote:
So I have my ticket, popcorn, and unusually large soda. Ticket boy takes the slip and tells me to go to Auditorium 16 to my left. But I know for a fact that Auditorium 16 is to the right. So I say "No, it's over there." He's in a bad mood anyway and gets snippy. I'm also in a bad mood. So tell him to shut up because he's a minimum wage ticket taker at a sucky monsterplex nobody cares about. And by the way, they have stale Milk Duds. So he takes a swing, thinking I'm defenseless because my hands are full of popcorn and an unusually large soda. So I smack him with the hand that has the soda. The soda explodes in a dazzling splash of syrupy fountain-drawn splendor all over his Supercuts coif. He's stunned. I get overzealous and just start wailing on the little punk. Right right right right kick kick right right...Then somebody hits me from behind and I realize another employee has joined the fray. Then two more. But I'm holding my own with some swift kicks and one of those poles with the retractable strap to make standby lines when the auditorium isn't ready. Popcorn, blood, and dark brown soda is everywhere. The girls at the snack bar have abandoned their posts and are throwing boxes of stale Milk Duds at me. The other patrons are getting annoyed because we're basically taking up the width of the hallway and they can't get around us to go to their movies. So after I get done beating the crap out of every employee in the building, we all go to our auditoriums and sit down. Unfortunately, I forgot to leave somebody standing to go upstairs and start the movies. So we all sit around with our popcorn and just sort of leave after it's gone.

None of this is true of course, and it's too bad because it would have been WAY more entertaining than this stupid sucky movie.

Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 02-09-2011, 10:14 PM:

Sam, the BEST review EVER!! [thumbsup]

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 02-10-2011, 01:35 AM:

I saw this in Amsterdam at the Cine Expo convention at its first showing.

I was blown away with the special effects and Speilberg was still hot back then and it was a high concept film with ties to Kubrik.

I was very disturbed after and it took me a day or so to decide whether I merely disliked the plot or truly hated it and it was the latter.

I later read Anthiny Lane's review in the New Yorket magazine and he put into words what I really felt.

The best line in his review was "she was a bad mother,...
to both children.

Imagine a film where the parents drive the synthetic boy out to the woods and release him like a pet you no longer want.

Truly hideous on any number of levels!

Posted by Manny Knowles (Member # 1171) on 02-10-2011, 06:05 AM:

Sam,

You hated the entire film based on the actions of supporting characters in the first act?

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-10-2011, 08:44 AM:

A.I. was an interesting movie and had some terrific visual effects. However, I have come to regard the movie as a big downer. It's depressing. The layers of trademark Spielberg schmaltz aren't able to brighten up what is ultimately a really bleak story.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 02-10-2011, 08:59 AM:

Nearly all "high concept" movies will be bleak. They want to be as far from the typical Hollywood happy ending as possible. So "high concept" movies are usually predictable by that alone.

Posted by Sam D. Chavez (Member # 1841) on 02-10-2011, 10:23 AM:

The first act is the foundation of all films.

Then the plot sickens.

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 02-10-2011, 12:48 PM:

Sam, the situation in your review should be written into the next Adam Sandler movie.

Posted by Ron Funderburg (Member # 4561) on 02-17-2011, 01:44 PM:

I didn't like the film very much I didn't hate it. I don' t have to have a happy ending for me but this one just missed and then missed again. It didn't exactly suck and yes it was visually nice but it just wasn't a film I would watch again and again. Or even again once I don't think.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 02-21-2011, 01:48 PM:

We opened A.I. on September 13th, 2001. Although the attacks on the twin towers happened 9/11 there it was already 9/12 here so the very next day we opened it.

It was for me a very sad piece of irony that at the end of the film pretty much the only buildings left in Manhattan were the World Trade Center towers.