In 1969, Brian Aldiss, an English author of science fiction published
a short story called “Super-Toys Last All Summer Long”. This story inspired
famed film director Stanley Kubrick to opt the story for a movie sometime in
the early 1970’s. While I won’t go into the intense minutiae of the Kubrick
history of this option, let it be known that he himself handed the project off
to his younger contemporary, Steven Spielberg, in the mid-1990’s. This project developed
into the bloated budget A.I: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
To be fair, I like Stanley Kubrick. 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY is
one of the highest points of filmmaking, as well as a pinnacle of the science
fiction genre. I also like Steven Spielberg at times. What the hell either of
them was thinking in the adaptation of the source material is so questionable
it could make a summer-long racket on the insipid 500 QUESTIONS game show on
NBC.
A.I. is supposed to follow the story of a robot child played
by ever-so-cute Haley Joel Osment, who made things cuter on shows like MURPHY
BROWN and THUNDER ALLEY before whispering his way through M. Night Shyamalan flicks.
It’s sort of a depressing story to begin with, as the parents try to replace
their living child with the robot, which has been programmed to “love”. Things
just get creepy and weird from there, as the mother contends with the creepy
and weird robot kid who sidles a lot. I mean, even Elaine Benes gave her sidler
a pack of Tic-Tacs ™ to keep from being surprised – they can’t do that to a
fucking robot? Creepy and weird kid robot continues that tactic until one day,
after a foul incident where creepy and weird kid robot nearly kills the real
son, who’d made a miraculous recovery from the iron lung with no explanation. I
am honestly having a hard time recapping this shitstorm of a movie, so bear
with me if I purposely jump a scene or five.
Mom, in a fit of creepy and weird love for her robot son,
drops the creepy and weird robot in the middle of the forest instead of having
him ground up into base parts after the foul incident. She abandons him with a
robot toy called “Teddy”, a walking, talking futuristic Teddy Ruxpin ™, of
sorts. Quickly to recap this: MOM ABANDONS ROBOT SON IN THE WOODS. Out of love,
of course! It’s a heart-wrenching scene of utter banality that hearkens to
tossing a garbage bag out of the window of a moving car.
(aren't they just cuuuuuute?)
Moving on, creepy and weird robot kid and his robot teddy
bear companion go on a search for the “Blue Fairy”, a fable told to him at some
point earlier in this already wretched celluloid mess that you hope might save
what you’ve already come to hate. (Or I did, at least – let me tell you I’m
personally glad I didn’t shill out my hard earned cash for this!) The search
for “Blue Fairy” takes creepy/weird robot and Teddy through all sorts of fun
adventures through homeless robots, robot hunters, robot arena fights and
smelting pools and finally, to Jude Law playing a sex robot. Just so you’re
aware, it wasn’t a big stretch for Mr. Law in this role. I think Ed Asner could
have pulled this role off, it was so easy. Sex robot takes creepy/weird kid
robot to see some animated silliness voiced by the late, great Robin Williams.
This animated coin-op Q&A machine has more to it than the entire movie, but
it’s just a plot point to push the anemic story forward to the (and I’m not
giving anything away here) wholly unsatisfying conclusion.
Robot sex toy steals a flying police car/helicopter thing
and he and creepy/weird robot kid and Teddy go to flooded NYC to find out some
really dumb things about the reason creepy/weird robot kid was made in the
first place. So basically, creepy weird kid meets his maker, the woefully
undeserving of this role William Hurt, and after a freak out, flies the police
car/helicopter to the bottom of flooded NYC – oh, didn’t you know? The flying
police car is a submarine, too. He then pilots over to sunken underwater Coney
Island, finds a statue of a “Blue Fairy” and sits there begging to be made human.
While there, an underwater Ferris wheel falls over and traps the police
heliosub, so creepy/weird robot kid can beg and pray to the “Blue Fairy” until
the end of time to be made human. Good thing Teddy is still there to be his
companion!
End of movie, right? Nope. It keeps going. Fade to thousands
of years in the future, where the world has frozen over. These weird alien
creatures are digging in the ice, acting as futuristic archaeologists. They
find creepy/weird robot kid and Teddy still in the heliosub, still functional
(!) and still wanting to be human. “Blue Fairy” crumbles in front of creepy/weird
robot kid’s eyes, though it still held blue color after all these thousands of
years… some paint job.
End of movie, right? No, again. The futuristic alien things,
which may be robots if you catch on to that, take creepy/weird kid and Teddy to
study them. They’re the best connection to humanity they’ve uncovered so far
(making me thing they’re shitty archaeologists) and want to learn from them.
Creepy/weird kid keeps crying about “Blue Fairy” and how he was supposed to be
a real boy now, blah, blah, blah… if you are still interested, go watch the
stupid movie and waste your own 146 minutes of time. More garbage happens
before the robots (or aliens, you decide on your own) resurrect the mother that
ABANDONED CREEPY/WEIRD ROBOT KID IN THE WOODS from a lock of her hair Teddy had
kept. Funny thing is, she’ll only live for a day – a fact the future
robot-aliens tell creepy/weird robot kid – and he does it anyway because he’s a
selfish shit that just wants to love.
Gahhhhhhhhh this movie was so unappealingly bad it
skyrocketed way, way up to the top three of terribly bad movies! I mean, it
sits in second place, in a tie with INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE
CRYSTAL SKULL, fighting for position. The only saving grace in the film is
Teddy, who is voiced to perfection by veteran talent Jack Angel. I mean, I give
much credit to the scenery and SFX, but the movie has no interest in showing
those off, so they take a back seat to Teddy, who was a more old-school
animatronic creation, and done greatly. If this movie had focused fully on
Teddy, I doubt A.I. would be anywhere near this month of SPEED 2. Yes, Teddy,
an animatronic robot toy has shamed Jan de Bont’s creative masterfuck enough to
not take the throne.
The strange thing about A.I. is that it maintains a decent
average of interest on a variety of sites dedicated to film. People didn’t hate
it so much as they didn’t go and see it. It had a budget of 100 million, even
less than the estimated budget of SPEED 2. It made more than SPEED 2, even if
it was a bomb for American viewers. It only took in 78 million here, while
raking in under 160 million overseas. So, while it likely broke even, it did
nothing for film but cause more questions from trivial pursuers. Who wrote
that, Kubrick or Spielberg? Who thought up that scene? Who did that? Who did…
ahhh fuck it, who cares? The movie is so wretched if you’re not hoping someone
just rips out the battery of creepy/weird robot kid by the third scene he’s
sidling through, you’re not watching the same movie. In fact, this movie is so
bad, do yourself a favor and go watch BICENTENNIAL MAN with Robin Williams. That
movie is basically the same plot, only less meandering, with less inferred
ideals and tons less depressive nonsense. It also doesn’t have the main
character have its adopted mother resurrected from a swatch of hair just to
watch her die in a 24 hour period. Love, my ass.
In fact, here’s a short list of robot movies that are three
hundred times more watchable than A.I: I, ROBOT. ROBOT JOX. REAL STEEL. SHORT
CIRCUIT 2. Or, watch all four seasons of the 80’s television show SMALL WONDER,
it’s time better spent.
I want to thank Vinnie Agosta, host of the great podcast From the Hip, for finally getting me to watch some drek. I mean, if it weren’t
for him, I’d probably never have sat through the entirety of A.I. One of these
days I’ll talk him into doing a podcast while the two of us and John Amenta
watch SPEED 2 in payback. Tomorrow for SPEED 2 Month, I have a special surprise
waiting for you. No, really.
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