Based on Brian Aldiss' short story 'Super-Toys Last All Summer Long' (by way of Pinocchio), A.I. Artificial Intelligence was a long cherished project for Stanley Kubrick. Following Kubrick's death, the film was inherited by Steven Spielberg and the result is one of the most unusual and ambitious sci-fi epics of recent years.The film follows the adventures of android boy David (Hayley Joel Osment) in a future of enforced single child families and global warming. Programmed with "a love that will never die" by visionary scientist Professor Hobby (William Hurt), he is selected to fill the childless void in the home of Monica Swinton (Frances O'Connor), and finally abandoned by her when her own son recovers from a life threatening illness. Setting out on a quest to become a real boy worthy of his mommy's love, along the way he escapes a grotesque, televised "flesh fair" where robots are systematically destroyed in front of a raucous crowd. He then hooks up with Jude Law's ace robot lover Gigolo Joe who escorts David to Rouge City, and eventually to an eerily waterlogged New York where the skyscrapers rear up like monoliths from the sea and David confronts his fate. Part futuristic fairy tale, part sci-fi parable, A.I. Artificial Intelligence represents a fascinating meeting of minds between the creators of 2001: A Space Odyssey and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind.
