Rating: PG13
Genre:
Science Fiction
Release Date: 08/07/2001
Based on the 1969 short story
Super-Toys Last All Summer Long, by
Brian Aldiss, this
science fiction fantasy bears similarities to
Pinocchio (1940) and originated as a long-gestating project of director
Stanley Kubrick that passed to his friend
Steven Spielberg after
Kubrick's death.
Haley Joel Osment stars as
David, a "mecha" or robot of the future, when the polar ice caps have melted and submerged many coastal cities, causing worldwide starvation and human dependence upon robotic assistance. The first mecha designed to experience love,
David is the "son" of
Henry (
Sam Robards), an employee of the company that built the boy, and the grief-stricken
Monica (
Frances O'Connor).
David is meant to replace the couple's hopelessly comatose son, but when their natural child recovers,
David is abandoned and sets out to become "a real boy" worthy of his mother's affection. Along the way,
David is mentored by a pleasure-providing mecha named
Gigolo Joe (
Jude Law) and a talking "super toy" bear named
Teddy. His adventures take him to the Roman Circus-style "Flesh Fair," where mechas are destroyed for the amusement of humans; Rouge City, where
Gigolo Joe narrowly avoids capture by police; and finally a submerged New York City, where
David's creator,
Professor Hobby (
William Hurt) reveals the secrets of the boy's creation.
Brendan Gleeson and narrator
Ben Kingsley co-star in
A.I., which was adapted from
Kubrick's treatment by
Spielberg, in his first crack at screenwriting since
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
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