AI Artificial Intelligence

David (Osment) is a Mecha-boy, a robot prototype who thinks and feels like a real boy. Monica and Henry (O'Connor and Robards), whose natural son is in a vegetative state, afford him a wary welcome, the mother's need overcoming her trepidation. Then, when their own son makes a miraculous recovery, sibling rivalry gets out of hand, and Monica abandons the surrogate in the woods to fend for himself. A schizophrenic animal, Kubrick and Spielberg's love child begins in cerebral sci-fi mode before switching abruptly into a heart-rending fairytale redolent of E.T., The Wizard of Oz and especially Pinocchio. Spielberg adopted the project and, whatever Kubrick's input may have been, took sole screenplay credit for the first time since Close Encounters. The result is surprisingly clumsy and ill-integrated. Yet A.I. is ambitious, personal and revealing. A film about childhood as opposed to a film for kids, it has more than its share of beauty, wonders and mysteries. The SFX are miraculous; Osment and O'Connor scarcely less so. At heart it's a terribly anguished expression of rejection, loneliness and love. If only it knew when to stop.