Bad Movie Logo
"A website to the detriment of good film"
Custom Search
HOMEB-MOVIE REVIEWSREADER REVIEWSFORUMINTERVIEWSUPDATESABOUT
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 05:00:06 PM
713365 Posts in 53058 Topics by 7725 Members
Latest Member: wibwao
Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  What are they talking about? I LIKED A.I. « previous next »
Pages: [1]
Author Topic: What are they talking about? I LIKED A.I.  (Read 3524 times)
Writer
Guest
« on: February 09, 2005, 08:54:51 AM »

I've seen some disparaging reviews of A.I., but I thought it was one of the best movies I've ever seen. With this flick, you get just enough of Stanley Kubrick for the story to be disturbing, with just enough of Steven Spielberg to keep the story from becoming too horrible and despairing. About the only fault I can find with it is the somewhat silly contradiction of having global warming in the beginning and a new ice age at the end. (Make up your minds, guys: are we all going to freeze, or are we all going to fry?)

Particular parts I liked:

-Gigolo Joe's assertion: "Once you've had a mecha, you will never want a real man again." Not an idle boast, judging by the fate of humanity.

-The Kubrickian irony that the very boy who pleaded for his robotic life at the Flesh Fair had no qualms against smashing another robot.

-Rouge City's theme that humanity might entertain itself to death. This was the theme of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World novel, but it's done a lot more believably here.

-The lesson that genuine niceness is not at all the same thing as being genuinely moral, as demonstrated by Professor Hobby.

-Robots who are actually sorry to see humanity die, a welcome change from all the nightmarish machines in other movies that are hell-bent on wiping out humanity for no immediately apparent reason.

-The happy ending that, when you think about it, is actually not so happy after all. This is my biggest beef with the reviewers: they talk about how "sappy" the ending is. "Can't you see that it's not really a Spielberg ending!?" The ending is either soft suicide or the temporal equivalent of damnation, depending on what happens next, and that's the whole point.
Logged
Mr_Vindictive
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 129
Posts: 3702


By Sword. By Pick. By Axe. Bye Bye.


« Reply #1 on: February 09, 2005, 09:51:58 AM »

I have seen the flick a few times, and have enjoyed it each time.  Yet, it feels somewhat bloated.  It's overly long.

Logged

__________________________________________________________
"The greatest medicine in the world is human laughter. And the worst medicine is zombie laughter." -- Jack Handey

A bald man named Savalas visited me last night in a dream.  I think it was a Telly vision.
Writer
Guest
« Reply #2 on: February 09, 2005, 10:10:20 AM »

I can see how the movie's leisurely pace might bother some people, but it's not meant to be an action flick, after all. It'd probably make a good "date movie" since it combines science fiction, which is usually considered a guys' topic, with all the domestic themes about family, which is considered more of a gals' topic.  Guys who are more into action can step out to get their gals some popcorn during the first part, since the pace picks up later on.
Logged
Mr_Vindictive
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 129
Posts: 3702


By Sword. By Pick. By Axe. Bye Bye.


« Reply #3 on: February 09, 2005, 10:31:55 AM »

I don't mind slow movies in any way.  In most cases, I'd rather watch a slow drama rather than an action flick.

I can say that the length of A.I. didn't bother me the first time through.  I took it all in, and found it to be quite enjoyable.  But, it's only been on subsequent viewings that it seemed to be overly long.  As I said before though, despite this, it's still a good film.

Logged

__________________________________________________________
"The greatest medicine in the world is human laughter. And the worst medicine is zombie laughter." -- Jack Handey

A bald man named Savalas visited me last night in a dream.  I think it was a Telly vision.
AndyC
Global Moderator
B-Movie Kraken
****

Karma: 1402
Posts: 11156



« Reply #4 on: February 09, 2005, 12:26:50 PM »

I don't know if I would call the ending sappy. I somewhat agree that it is still a tragic ending. I do, however, think it was a weak ending, and felt tacked on. A much stronger ending would have been to leave him under the water, praying to the blue fairy for all time. That really felt like the natural place for it to end.

There were also aspects of the movie that I found hard to believe. I can buy a future with robots, and lots of the other things presented, but I can't believe in a police vehicle that's sufficiently automated to fly itself, yet cannot be remotely disabled or controlled if it's stolen. Little things like that jumped out at me throughout the movie.

And one thing still really puzzles me. Gigolo Joe enticed some guys in a car to go to Rouge City, but what incentive did he offer them to take him and the kid along? It's not really clear, but a few possibilities come to mind.

Logged

---------------------
"Join me in the abyss of savings."
trekgeezer
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 0
Posts: 4973


We're all just victims of circumstance


« Reply #5 on: February 09, 2005, 12:31:36 PM »

It was okay until the 30 minute long ending.

Logged




And you thought Trek isn't cool.
Max Gardner
Guest
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2005, 01:02:31 PM »

I'd have to agree with you. It should have ended there. Then Spielberg apparently felt the need to insert his typical quota of hamhanded sentimentality and tacked on another half hour that conflicted with everything else the movie was saying.
Logged
Writer
Guest
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2005, 03:21:40 PM »

Well, if they'd just left it at "there he sat and pleaded until doomsday," that wouldn't be much of an ending. It would leave the audience saying "The kid's going to last practically forever! Didn't anything happen to him after that?" And I don't see the ending as "ham-handed" or contradictory to anything put forth in the rest of the movie either, since the movie was always calling attention to attempts to manipulate emotions and this final twist does so as well. Again, it's not really a Spielberg ending, in spite of how happy and heart-warming it might seem on the suface. It wasn't as edgy as a Kubrick ending would have been, but it's still just as ironic. (If Kubrick had done the ending, I think it would have specified that the kid really was going to sleep for good. "And they all died happily ever after. Well, they died anyway. I'm not sure about the 'happy' part.")

As for the helicopter, it might seem a bit odd that the police didn't have remote controls for it, but disabling a flying device in midflight could be rather disastrous, and anything that allows police the power to control their machines remotely might allow criminals to do so too, unless they had encryption, which a really clever hacker might still be able to break through... Having to have extra security features on what's supposed to be a security feature in the first place is rather self-defeating, so maybe the police just didn't bother to install things like that in their helicopters for the same reason that a lot of people don't bother with car alarms: too much trouble for too little benefit.

I suppose my real curiosity would be as to why Doctor Know was so costly, given that a simple internet kiosk with a search engine could probably provide all of that information more cheaply these days. Still, the story on which the movie was based was written back before the rise of the internet, so this may be a simple anachronism from the short story.

While it wasn't specified what Gigolo Joe could do for the teens who gave him and the boy a lift to Rouge City, someone like him would surely have business connections in a city that employs so many of his kind, and that sales pitch he gave them does suggest some possibilites. (Free coupons, maybe?) I also notice that he managed to get a one-of-a-kind robot kid who looks no different from any human child into the city without drawing any attention to himself, which is at least as good a trick as getting a ten-year-old child into a porno theater through the front door; that suggests something about just how good his connections were. Here the audience is called upon to use its imagination, but I do wish I had the original short story on hand so I could see whether it offers any interesting details on these matters.
Logged
AndyC
Global Moderator
B-Movie Kraken
****

Karma: 1402
Posts: 11156



« Reply #8 on: February 09, 2005, 03:55:27 PM »

I'm not sure why we would need to know what happened to him after he was trapped. To me, that's an ending, and it makes a strong statement about his determination to pursue something he can never have. He's willing to sit there and plead for it for all eternity (or as long as he lasts). It's like something right out of Greek mythology, a great ending. It sure beats long, slow, dull and unnecessary.

What is it with people who need things wrapped up in a nice little package? Give me an ending that leaves me wondering.

Logged

---------------------
"Join me in the abyss of savings."
JohnL
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 0
Posts: 2388


« Reply #9 on: February 09, 2005, 09:11:04 PM »

I was left wondering why, if Gigolo Joe is just another robot, that he seems to have flashes of being truly sentient, like when he says the line "They made us too smart, too fast". Was he supposed to be pretending the rest of the time so that humans don't catch on, or was he really that artificial?
Logged
peter johnson
Guest
« Reply #10 on: February 09, 2005, 10:20:41 PM »

The only part of the film that didn't "fit" for me was the Flesh Fair -- it had a tawdry B quality to it that felt like it had been shot by a second unit.  Like it all belonged in another movie.  And I really didn't like the Chris Rock robot.  For a lot of reasons.
That being said, I found the ending to be lyrical & poetic.  I found the line about "and since he had nothing else to do, he went to sleep too" to be genuinely heart-rending.  I guess I enjoy some sap in my diet now and then.
I loved the flying/self-resolving squares of the future robots -- cool cinema!
I really had no trouble at all with the carload of wild kids giving a ride to the robots just for the hell of it.  Cripes, y'all, when was the last time you hitch-hiked or gave a ride to someone for no other reason than to do it?:  "Dude!  Look!  A kid and a gigolo bot!  Pick 'em up!!"
No, I understand the criticisms, but for me the good far outweighed the bad & I'm very glad I saw it.
peter johnson/denny crane
Logged
Writer
Guest
« Reply #11 on: February 11, 2005, 12:02:54 AM »

Well, of course, you're not supposed to like the whole Flesh Fair sequence. They didn't exactly combine all the worst elements of heavy metal, a demolition derby, and a revival tent meeting for nothing! I think the film there was also of deliberately sleazy quality to heighten the effect.

Where Gigolo Joe's humanity is concerned, that the robots were becoming more human than they were supposed to be was exactly the impression intended. Humans wanted the robots as good as they could be made, and it didn't occur to them to question the morality of giving robots so many human qualities and then continuing to treat them like machinery. Of course, the very idea that robots ever could be that sentient casts serious doubts on whether humans are any better than machines themselves.

Mystery's fine for some occasions, but I definitely wouldn't have liked such an anti-climactic ending. There's still a bit of mystery left where it does end, too. If this is a "neat little package," then I'd say the package got broken open and spilled out a little nonetheless.

Of course, if you like mystery endings to movies, the one that always strikes me as one of the weirdest ever is the ending of Time Bandits. Uh, yeah, that ending makes sense. Sort of . Kind of. Maybe. It definitely did leave me wondering what would happen next.
Logged
AndyC
Global Moderator
B-Movie Kraken
****

Karma: 1402
Posts: 11156



« Reply #12 on: February 11, 2005, 08:39:16 AM »

Funny, anti-climactic was the exact term I was thinking of to describe the way they did end AI. Interesting, the way different people look at it.

Logged

---------------------
"Join me in the abyss of savings."
Scott
Frightening Fanatic of Horrible Cinema
****

Karma: 186
Posts: 5785


Hey, I'm in the situation room ! ! !


WWW
« Reply #13 on: February 11, 2005, 10:23:14 PM »

A.I.  kinda had the feeling of MINORITY REPORT, GATTICA, DARK CITY, and a few others. I like all the concepts of these films, but just not the look or atmosphere.

Logged

Pages: [1]
Badmovies.org Forum  |  Movies  |  Bad Movies  |  What are they talking about? I LIKED A.I. « previous next »
    Jump to:  


    RSS Feed Subscribe Subscribe by RSS
    Email Subscribe Subscribe by Email


    Popular Articles
    How To Find A Bad Movie

    The Champions of Justice

    Plan 9 from Outer Space

    Manos, The Hands of Fate

    Podcast: Todd the Convenience Store Clerk

    Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

    Dragonball: The Magic Begins

    Cool As Ice

    The Educational Archives: Driver's Ed

    Godzilla vs. Monster Zero

    Do you have a zombie plan?

    FROM THE BADMOVIES.ORG ARCHIVES
    ImageThe Giant Claw - Slime drop

    Earth is visited by a GIANT ANTIMATTER SPACE BUZZARD! Gawk at the amazingly bad bird puppet, or chuckle over the silly dialog. This is one of the greatest b-movies ever made.

    Lesson Learned:
    • Osmosis: os·mo·sis (oz-mo'sis, os-) n., 1. When a bird eats something.

    Subscribe to Badmovies.org and get updates by email:

    HOME B-Movie Reviews Reader Reviews Forum Interviews TV Shows Advertising Information Sideshows Links Contact

    Badmovies.org is owned and operated by Andrew Borntreger. All original content is © 1998 - 2014 by its respective author(s). Image, video, and audio files are used in accordance with the Fair Use Law, and are property of the film copyright holders. You may freely link to any page (.html or .php) on this website, but reproduction in any other form must be authorized by the copyright holder.