I saw A.I. on opening night last weekend during some vacation time at the beach. Summer movies are a staple of my weekends at the beach, but usually they are more of the mindless blockbuster variety. Last weekend, however, I was able to experience a film which not only represents the work of one of our most gifted film directors, but a film containing inspiration from another of our most gifted film directors who is no longer with us.
I had been fascinated behind the ideas for this film ever since I heard that this was one of Stanley Kubrick's dream projects. Kubrick's interest in this project had been well known for several years. When Kubrick died after finishing another of his dream projects, Eyes Wide Shut, I felt that the dream of A.I. would be lost forever. Thankfully, Kubrick had been consulting with Steven Spielberg for several years about the project, and he had envisioned Spielberg actually directing this film. It's still intriguing to think what the film might have been like had Kubrick lived to direct it, but I think Spielberg has done an absolutely masterful job of combining his own unique style and Kubrick's to produce a rare masterpiece.
I think it's appropriate that Spielberg made this film this year, 2001, the year that Kubrick imagined his future in his own Space Odyssey film from 1968. That film, which I feel is the greatest motion picture ever made, was most brilliant because of its grandness of ideas ... ideas that left audiences pondering and discussing decades later.
A.I., while not on the same level of brilliance as 2001, is still a thoughtful and intelligent film which will also leave audiences pondering for many years to come I feel. It not only will engender discussion about the ideas of the future it embodies, particularly in its portrayal of what may happen when we do finally create robots with true artificial intelligence (which all accounts tend to say will indeed happen), but also for the discussion of how much of the film is Kubrick and how much is Spielberg, and what happens when two master filmmakers collide in the same film.
