Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Steven Spielberg is a cinematic genius. So was Stanley Kubrick. But I suspect this unconventional, collaborative effort will mystify movie-goers. Some will be beguiled, as I was. Others may be frustrated and/or disappointed.

Told as a sci-fi fairy tale, the story revolves around the prototype of a perfect robotic child named David (Hayley Joel Osment), adopted by a Cybertronics employee (Sam Robards) and his wife (Frances O'Connor) whose own seriously ill child (Jake Thomas) has been cryogenically frozen.

David is programmed to love, but those around him aren't - because he's 'mecha' (mechanical), not 'orga' (organic) - and, therein, lies his dilemma. Like Pinocchio, he yearns to be a real boy. But how? When he's abandoned with only his supertoy Teddy bear as a companion, he sets off in search of a dream.

Steeped in romanticism, the plot is divided into three segments: the domestic drama of David's adoption, his quest or odyssey, and then the futuristic underwater/ice sequences, a consequence of global warming. And this distinct fragmentation has its problems.

In the darkly disturbing road trip, for example, David meets up with an entertaining, dancing 'love mecha' named Gigolo Joe (Jude Law). "Once you've had a mecha lover, you'll never want a real man again," Joe assures his female clients, twisting his neck to cue the music "I Only Have Eyes For You." Joe takes him to the garish Flesh Fair, "a rite of blood and electricity," resembling a nightmarish carnival, hosted by menacing Lord Johnson-Johnson (Brendan Gleeson), filled with robot torture devices, set to the pulsating industrial metal band Ministry. "They made us too smart, too quick, too many," Joe explains. "That's why they hate us."

Then the eerie third segment, as David searches for the Blue Fairy, evokes both "E.T." and "Close Encounters of a Third Kind," but the perilous journey moves grandly and tediously. There's a murky lack of cohesion, a feeling of schizophrenia, although the Pinocchio fable is slavishly followed - from a Jiminy Cricket character (Teddy, voiced by Jack Angel) to the circus, etc. - with a tinge of Dorothy searching for "The Wizard of Oz" thrown in.

Gifted beyond his years, young Hayley Joel Osment ("The Sixth Sense") is amazing as the obsessively spooky "toy boy," made of silicon and synthetics. Osment manages to convey his robotic nature with subtle nuances - taking mechanical steps, turning his eyes before his head and not blinking. And charismatic Jude Law ("The Talented Mr. Ripley") is quite amusing. Sam Robards ("American Beauty") and Frances O'Connor ("Mansfield Park") convey the necessary ambivalence, while William Hurt ("Sunshine") is simply pedantic as David's inventor.

The rich visuals - sets, costumes, and creature/make-up effects - are simply amazing. Teddy, for example, according to the press kit, houses 50 servo motors in his small body, 24 in the head alone, controlling his intricate facial movements. According to producer Bonnie Curtis, "Teddy is not only animatronic, he can think. He's your protector, the ultimate plaything...funny, sarcastic, smart." Stan Winston Studios created six versions of Teddy, each with specialized functions.

Some of the other robots are quite poignant. In a scene in which damaged robots scavenge through a junk heap for lost parts - a new arm to replace a damaged one - several actors with missing limbs were hired.

In the decadent, sensual Rouge City, there are remnants of Stanley Kubrick everywhere, from a Clockwork Orange milk bar to a sign reading STRANGELOVES. And, of course, the complexity of our humanity always challenged Kubrick, from "Lolita" to "The Shining" to "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Eyes Wide Shut." If you recall, in "2001," the astronaut (Keir Dullea) evolves into a Star Child.

Filmed in 68 days for under $100 million (half the alleged cost of "Pearl Harbor"), it's the first film Steven Spielberg has written since 1977's "Close Encounters," and he based it on Brian Aldiss's short story ("Super-Toys Last Summer," published in Harper's Bazaar in 1969), along with Ian Watson's screen story.

On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence" is an unpredictable, intriguing 10. Love it or hate it, it's a triumph of innovative film-making, a blend of science and humanity, a collaboration of two acknowledged masters.

POSTSCRIPT: According to Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, an MIT professor, the field of Artificial Intelligence, established in 1956, has changed our world forever as robots, increasingly, participate in our daily lives.

But the dream of building intelligent machines is certainly not new. Arguably, it's a uniquely and profoundly human quest. As far back as the ancient Greeks, the idea appears in Homer's "Iliad," where Hephaistos, the god of metal smiths, fashions mechanical helpers - strong, vocal, and intelligent maidens of gold. The idea surfaces again in medieval times in the Jewish legend of the Golem, a robot-like servant made of clay brought to life by Rabbi Loew of Prague.

But, putting functional reasons aside, Professor Breazeal asserts that another primary motivation for building robotic creatures is our need to better understand ourselves. Through the process of building a synthetic creature, we come to a deeper appreciation and understanding of our own impressive abilities. She herself has built a humanoid robot named Kismet, who, she feels, shares many parallels with the character of David in "A.I."



Recommended: Yes

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older