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Synopsis: Monica (Francis O'Connor) and Henry (Jake Thomas) Swinton's darling son Martin is wasting away in Cryogenicsville, searching for his lost shaker of cure. Monica is going quietly crazy, watching her child through the permafrosted glass of his bubble and wishing there was something she could do for him. Henry, a slightly more pragmatic fellow, is approached by a visionary (Professor John Robinson, er, William Hurt) from the company for which he works, with a proposition. Bring home a prototype... an A.I. who can love and emotionally bond to a family... and make him a part of the family. Monica gets someone to lavish her love upon... the company gets to have their prototype tested... and everyone's happy, right?
You FOOL! This is at least in part a Stanly Kubrick film! How could everyone be happy? How could you even think that? How? How? HOW??? Things shortly go to Hell in a hand basket as Martin gets himself cured and comes home, prompting David (the Emotional AI) to go on a run across land, searching for the answer to his dreams. He encounters prejudices of the day and a Gigolo AI (Jude Law, in his best role since The Talented Mr Ripley), who becomes his guide of Experience and Innocence. The world unfolds before our eyes until the shocking conclusion... er... two conclusions, as this movie ends twice.
I fear I can say no more about the plot. There's too much revealed already -- I want you to experience this film on your own. If you want to know more about it, should you say hate Stephen Spielburg or movies about A.I.s, feel free to drop me a line at this address and I'll fill you in!

Commentary: The Following Statement Is A Lie
This movie sucks.
The Preceding Statement Has Been A Lie
Y'know? This is one of those movies about which absolutely everyone and their freakin' brothers wants to find something to hate. I don't disagree that there are rough moments in this movie... and that further, it's certainly not everybody's cup of tea, but honestly, there seems to be a good deal of vitriol forming against the film, and a good deal of that seems to be based on how much hype it received. Fair enough, I suppose, since The Phantom Menace got stomped for the same reason (and I really really enjoyed that film. Not as much as eps IV, V and VI, but it felt like a worthy part of the mythos, don'tchaknow). So I did consider making this review as glowing a piece of pyrite as I could, trying to make up for some of the more seemingly silly reviews. Then I realised there were two problems with that.
1) No one reads my reviews anyway and
2) That's unfair to the two people who do read them.
So that said, this film rocked. And it rocked the whole danged Casbah. Unfortunately, there were some problems with it... the endings, while not a deal-breaker for me, did leave me wishing that I could do a little creative re-writing of the movie. Fortunately, though, the good outweighed the bad by a hefty margin. Spielburg takes his usual 'show don't tell' attitude towards his story. You'll often learn more by observing a scene and making mental connections between facts than by waiting for some Exposition Receptical to tell you what's going on. There's a certain beauty to this style of story-telling and it's one that's been sadly lacking for the past few years. The shots set up some absolutely beautiful cinema for you to dwell upon... there's just no end to the treats in this movie.

Moments to Watch For

Paddington Superbear!

Recommended: It's absolutely splendid.

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