A.I. Film Review by Thomas, Michael and Isabelle

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Film Review by Thomas Costenaro, Michael Hum and Isabelle Goureev

 

 Starring

Haley Joel Osment (David), Frances O’Connor (Monica Swinton), Sam Robards (Henry Swinton), Jake Thomas (Martin Swinton), Jude Law (Gigolo Joe)

Writer and Director

Steven Spielberg

Running Time

2h26min(IMDb)

Film Review

        Set in the distant future, an American company called Cybertronics aspires to make a robot, a "mecha," that will independently choose to love and dream as well as be loved by humans. One employee, Henry Swinton and his wife Monica become ideal test subjects for the first robot child as their son Martin is currently in a “pending” state, frozen within a glass case until a cure is found for his condition. Although hesitant and still mourning the loss of her son, Monica decides to imprint on David, making their bond permanent, ironically just before Martin recovers from his "pending" state and comes home. After experiencing some of David’s weird and dangerous behaviours, Monica abandons David in the forest fearing that he might jeopardise the safety and integrity of her real family. David sets out on a quest to find the Blue Fairy from the story of Pinocchio believing she can turn him into a real boy and then Monica will love him again. In the wild, David realizes the truth about how humans view his kind after surviving the Flesh Fair with Gigolo Joe, a mecha prostitute. David and Joe venture to Rouge city to speak to Dr. Know, whom Joe reports will have the answer to where the Blue Fairy is. Following Dr. Know’s instructions, he finds Prof. Hobby and his lab where David realises that he is not unique and then jumps into the ocean in his sadness. There he finds a statue of the Blue Fairy and remains there for 2,000 years praying to be turned into a real boy. Futuristic robots find him and recreate David's home with the Swinton's, including bringing back his mother for a day. At the end of that day, David is finally at peace.

         Throughout the film, various cinematic techniques are used such as sound and lighting. At the beginning of the film when Monica interacts with David for the first time, the director uses the nondiegetic sound of strange creepy music to show how weird David’s behaviour is and to give the viewer a better sense of the strangeness and awkwardness of David. Similarly, mechanical noises such as whirring and buzzing or metal joints creaking are heard to remind us that the character speaking is in fact a robot and not a human. At one point, David falls into the pool after almost drowning Martin; he is left underwater watching and listening to his family. The audio in that scene is from David’s POV which demonstrates his loneliness and gives the viewer a sense of what he’s feeling.

The lighting in the movie changes as the story progresses. The lighting is bright and lively at the start, a sign of hope and potential. However, it quickly becomes dark after Monica abandons David. This sets the mood in the film for a much darker, sad theme. Occasionally, something bright stands out in the darkness, such as the moon which gives guidance to David & Joe in their journey towards Rouge City. Only at the end of the film does brightness take over the screen once more. Two thousand years have passed and the recreated reality that the futuristic robots make for David bring him a sense of true joy and peace.

Sets, although constructed of inanimate objects, are also important for setting the mood of a scene. The film starts at Cybertronics, a clean, industrial and modern facility. During a meeting, there, as light pours in through open windows, over 100 employees gather to discuss the possibilities of scientific advancement in the world of "mecha." Continuing in the film, the Swinton home is upscale and contemporary however, unlike Cybertronics, it still contains elements like old-fashioned photographs and wooden floors that give it a homey, organic feel. The next main setting is the forest in which Monica leaves David to fend for himself. It is dark, crowded with trees, and muddy which invokes a sense of helplessness and an inability to escape from any dangers. David and Joe are indeed caught and brought to the Flesh Fair, a place where mecha are destroyed in various ways for “a celebration of life.” However, with a strange heavy metal band playing at one end of an oval shaped arena, it much more closely resembles an extremely distorted form of the Colosseum of the Roman Empire. After a narrow escape, the duo make their way to Rouge City. Paralleling Las Vegas, the sky is dark but the city is bright and garish with a way to satisfy your every passion and desire. The final main location is Manhattan. It may have once been dubbed the “city that never sleeps” (Flannigan, Timout.com) but all life in Manhattan is sleeping now. Apart from some of the tallest buildings, the entire city is drowned under water. A single sign of human existence remains….the Cybertronics office.

And so we are brought full circle, back to Cybertronics where the movie started. Henry Swinton, the first test subject to accept a robot that had the potential to love into their life, is portrayed as good dad trying to do what he thinks is best for his family. He introduces David to Monica with excitement but interestingly enough he never imprints himself as David's father. Eventually, Henry shows a high level of distaste for David and his weird behaviors. Monica, on the other hand, is grieving until she imprints herself as David's mother who then for the first time calls her "mommy" rather than "Monica" It's at this point she develops a love for David and joy returns to her life. However, she returns to a state of sadness when she gives him up. Gigolo Joe is not as highly developed as David but shows some independent emotional capacities. Although programmed to satisfy people’s physical and sensual desires, he is also kind and demonstrates so by choosing to help David on his journey to find the Blue Fairy. Prof.  Hobby is someone trying to lead the future of AI with more realistic robots but at the end of the film we realize that much of his motivation stems from trying to fill a gap in his heart left by the death of his young son. David, the mecha, in fact was a robotic replica of his son and even shared his name. And finally, David starts off as naive curious little boy but as he experiences the harsh reality of his world he loses his innocence, and even his desire to continue "living." However, he has independently developed desires and dreams such as wanting to become a real boy and he will strive to have them fulfilled. When his mom is brought back his mood completely changes and is happy again. 

The emotional diversity of various characters would not be visible without an exceptional and skilled cast to portray them. Artificial Intelligence possesses such a cast. All the actors playing a role as a mecha did a great job to show variances in mechas’ abilities. Jude Law was especially convincing Gigolo Joe fully capturing his role as a pleasure robot. Theo Greenly, who had a small role, playing a boy who is at a birthday party for Martin Swinton was nevertheless an example of the fine casting in this film. Within a matter of seconds, he can switch from laughing at David, to curiosity, to persuasion, and finally to fear. Sam Robards and Frances O’Connor play Henry and Monica Swinton respectively and have a wonderful chemistry. Their characters have a similar development pattern but in opposite directions. Henry initially shows excitement in progressing science and accepts David into their family. However, by the end, Henry has regressed and fears David. Monica, however, has no interest in having David as part of their family. As the days pass though, and she is able to observe how normal David appears, she decides to imprint and she fully embraces David into their family. Henry and Monica would end up having a big argument on what to do with David when he begins to show some more erratic behavior. It is scenes such as these that show their character's contrasting development pattern and the actors' abilities to play off of each other.  Haley Osment put on an exceptional performance as David. At the start of the film, David looked like a robot however, as the film progress Haley made micro adjustments to the character so that by the end David appeared very much like a real boy. The cast for the film is filled with talent and A list actors including voice cameos by Chris Rock and the late Robin Williams.

A unique but generally unnoticed technique of filmmaking is foreshadowing. In the second scene of the movie, Martin is “frozen” and eventually reunites with his parents and in a similar manner David is literally frozen before being reunited with his mom. When David falls in the pool at Martin’s birthday party then just lays at the bottom in sadness foreshadows him jumping into the ocean in Manhattan. Gigolo Joe strongly believes and states that only robots will survive in the end and he is completely correct. Another technique used is flashback. When tells a story to David that she also told to Martin, she has a small flashback to Martin in the capsule.

Finally, camera angles are used to demonstrate intentions and the big picture. For example, when David jumps off the Cybertronics building and falls into the water, a wide-angle shot is used to show a blue fairy statue in the distance. A close-up is then used to capture David’s reaction which is one of hope to get to the blue fairy once more. However, before he can do so, he is snatched out of the water by Gigolo Joe.

Some of the main themes present in the film are unrequited love, artificial intelligence and equality. Issues and questions raised by the film include the morality, ethical concerns and possible consequences of creating AI, what rights to AI robots have or do even have any, in what circumstances do we give AI moral value, can AI truly love humans, can humans love them back and if so what do we owe them in return since they are almost human? Other questions asked are What does it mean to be human? What is our future? Why are robots so negatively viewed even if they often set a better example for us as humans?          

        Word Count: 1741 words                   

    Review                  

Artificial Intelligence is a film of many strengths but also has some flaws that can’t be ignored. Those will be mentioned shortly but first to give credit where it is due. This movie, in terms of its cinematic qualities, is superb. The lighting, sound, and CGI blend together beautifully to enrapture the audience and obliterate any doubts of whether an aspect of the film is real or not, much as artificial intelligence is supposed to do. The actors also have excellent chemistry and talent to portray a variety of characters where each contributes to the story no matter how small the part is. Another strong point is that the film poses ideas that challenge us deeply on a psychological level. For example, the robots being destroyed at the Flesh Fair have no independent will. However, when David is about to be destroyed, he shows emotion and a desire to live and because of that the onlookers save him. Scenes such as these challenge the idea of what it takes to be given the same rights as a human being and even what it means to be human.

Now while these are wonderful qualities in a film, there are flaws that can sometimes be painfully noticed. For example, the length of some scenes is entirely too long. From the point of David finding the Blue Fairy statue to the end of the film, which required very little change in scenery or plot, uses up almost a full half hour. There are some plot holes as well. The future robots could obtain access to all information in David’s brain but there is no evidence as to whether they used it for any purpose in the future. Also, at the end of the film when David lies down next to his mother, it is unclear if he “dies” or just falls asleep. Despite a confusing and somewhat long ending, this is a captivating film fully deserving a 4-star rating.

Course Connections

1) In the film, the people at the Flesh Fair assign moral value to David when he cries for help as he is about to be melted. People assigned him moral value even though he was mecha since they empathised with him and thought it wasn’t fair because he’s “just a boy”. An example of course material that specifically relates to this is the robot Robovie who was put in a closet during a board game. The researcher, who is comparable to the host of the Flesh Fair in terms of his role, puts Robovie in a closet. The kids empathised with him and assigned him moral value which lead to them pleading that it wasn’t fair even though he’s “just a robot”. This is the same case with David since they didn’t agree with the host and protested the unfairness even though he’s a mecha.

2) When we first see David, his behaviour puts him in the uncanny valley since his behaviour and movement seems very artificial and robotic in contrast to his human physical appearance. David is in the uncanny valley more for viewer than the human characters in the film since they are used to living with ultra-realistic robots. For the viewer, David might be in the uncanny valley for the whole film or not at all but for us we found that he left the uncanny valley when Monica imprinted on him because he seemed more human and alive and was less socially awkward and robotic after that moment.

3) In many ways, the relationship between mecha and humans in the film can be compared to the bond between animals and humans as we studied in the "Minds of Their Own" article. For a long time, animals were deemed incapable of having a thought process. However, not all scientists were satisfied, and began to research a way to "prove that an animal is capable of thinking - that it is able to acquire information about the world and act on it" (Morell, National Geographic). Animals and developed mecha also both show a capacity to learn. In "Minds of Their Own," various projects are described in which animals are taught to perform certain tasks, recognize colors and shapes, and be able to communicate with human words. In a similar manner, David remains highly observant of how humans act around him and he learns to act similarly to blend in. For example, the David watches Henry and Monica eat at the dinner table and he soon too pretends to eat with a fork and drink water. Another resemblance is how humans view animals vs how mecha are viewed by humans in the film. Many animals are widely accepted by humans such as dogs or cats which are taken in as pets. However, humans will often fear the animals they do not understand or that they believe pose a threat. For example, people are horrified by how a spider's 8 legs can all move at once or they refuse to go swimming in the ocean for fear of being attacked by a shark. In much the same way, the mecha of the film that were strictly functional were accepted. But when they increased in number and intelligence, humans began to fear them and sought out a way to destroy them. Even in acceptance, such as with one of Gigolo Joe's clients, the first words out of her mouth are "I'm afraid" (Watson, Screenplays for You). Later on, Gigolo Joe summed this fear while in conversation with David, "You are not a dog, a cat or a canary. you were designed and built specific, like the rest of us....They made us too smart, too quick, and too many. We are suffering for the mistakes they made because when the end comes, all that will be left is us" (Watson, Screenplays for You). 

Questions

1. Do you think our society can reach a state where it would be normal for a human to fully love a robot?

2. David is more technologically advanced than other robots and thus is given more privileges. What similar examples of inequality do we see in our lives/society and how should they affect us?

3. Gigolo Joe is a "mecha" prostitute. What are your thoughts towards having sex with a robot and what are some of the moral and ethical implications?

Web links

1-    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3304286/Could-humans-fall-love-robots-Study-suggests-feel-empathy-droids-people.html

A study had found that humans have the potential to emphasise with robots as much as they emphasise for other humans. The article shows that there is a “girlfriend robot” that kept company to thousands of heart broken people. There are some robots that can read your emotions. And while experts disagree on the benefits of having robots disagree, the technological advances being made show that one day robots and humans may co-exist and have intimate and/or sexual relationships.

2-    http://www.livescience.com/29379-intelligent-robots-will-overtake-humans.html

Some study shows that by 2029, robots will be as smart as humans are and that by 2045, computers will be many times more powerful than humans’ intelligence. As machine intelligence reaches a point where it is equal to mans’, the ability to physically change our bodies with cyber parts will become a possibility and the economy will double within each month. With this quick progression, microbiologist Slonczewski asks “could we evolve ourselves out of existence, being gradually replaced by the machines?”

Works Cited

"A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)." IMDb.com, n.d.,   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/. Accessed 23 October 2016..

"Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001) by Ian Watson and Brian Aldiss. The Complete Dialogue." Screenplays for You, https://sfy.ru/transcript/ai_ts. Accessed 20 November 2016. 

Flannigan, Jenna. “A history of NYC nicknames.” TimeOut. 18 Jan. 2011, https://www.timeout.com/newyork/attractions/a-history-of-nyc-nicknames-history

Accessed 5 November 2016.

Ghose, Tia. “Intelligent Robots Will Overtake Humans by 2100, Experts Say.” LIVESCIENCE, 7 May 2013, http://www.livescience.com/29379-intelligent-robots-will-overtake-humans.html. Accessed 5 November 2016.

    Morell, Virginia. "Minds of their Own." National Geographic, March 2008, ngm.nationalgeographic.com/print/2008/03/animal-minds/virginia-morell-text. Accessed 20 November 2016. 

Zolfagharifard, E. & Prigg. M. “Could YOU fall in love with a robot? Study suggests we feel as much empathy for droids as we do for other people.” MailOnline, 4 November 2015, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3304286/Could-humans-fall-love-robots-Study-suggests-feel-empathy-droids-people.html. Accessed 5 November 2016.