Robokid

>> Spielberg gives a droid boy feelings in A.I.

by MATTHEW HAYS

A famous bit of lore concerning my favourite Spielberg film, Jaws, is telling. Apparently, the mechanical shark (nicknamed Bruce by the filmmaker himself), which had been created especially for the film, kept malfunctioning. So bad were the screwups that Spielberg was forced to show less of the shark and let John Williams' ominous score and creepy shark point-of-view shots build the suspense instead.

Thus the result: a film with less technology that actually works precisely because it was robbed of some sort of highfalutin f/x. Sadly, it could be argued that as Spielberg has become further enmeshed in using special f/x of all sorts in his films, he has become less of a filmmaker. Who would rather watch one of his dinosaur franchise over, say, Jaws or Duel?

A.I., Spielberg's latest, will invite much disdain from those who love to hate the filmmaker--especially considering it was part of a long collaboration between Spielberg and the late Kubrick. Their friendship does seem odd in light of their respective oeuvres: Kubrick was a man who continually pointed up the dehumanizing effects of technology; Spielberg, a tried and true technophile, has always seemed to relish the toys that allow him to make bright lights and things go bang and boom.

Worse still, Spielberg is what the British would refer to as "soppy." Witness the point in E.T. when the alien leaves the planet and there's a 15- minute sequence in which children wail about the departing creature. This, in my mind, was one of the most powerful arguments for infanticide that had ever been captured on film.

But enough of why Spielberg seems the wrong director to make this film. We all know the backstory by now: Spielberg has wanted to make this film for years, and Kubrick wanted to produce. Basically, it's about a future world in which robots have become an integral, if not entirely accepted, part of normal everyday life. Haley Joel Osment, of Sixth Sense fame, plays one of the first robots ever to look quite so lifelike (most droids, until this point, have been readily identifiable as such). Thanks to the scientist (William Hurt) who's created him, Osment has also been endowed with emotions and desperately wants a mommy, like a real human child.

There are some very good ideas in this film, ideas that unfold as the story progresses, and frankly, it'd be unfair to reveal them all here. Suffice it to say that if you're a science fiction buff, you'll probably enjoy this movie more than an average moviegoer. But as to the question of whether or not Spielberg should have been the one to make a movie about the first robot to have feelings, the answer, after having sat through this two-and-a-half-hour epic, is probably not.

The first half of the film is quite strong. The performances are solid, the ideas intriguing (robots have become a hated minority in this brave new world) and, naturally, it's beautifully shot.

But Spielberg just can't help himself. Remember Schindler's List, for example. The film really was exquisite in capturing the harrowing detail of the Holocaust. But in its final 20 minutes, Spielberg dragged the film down in pathos. Again, A.I. becomes far too sentimental and, by pushing the tear-jerker button yet again, Spielberg undoes much of the affect a subtler director might have been able to muster.

A.I. opens Friday, June 29