Sunday 8 December 2013

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)  - Film directed by Steven Speilberg

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Really, really creepy. There is nothing else to describe this film as, other than creepy. A family decide to create a unique robotic child, to replace their one who is in a coma. The robot child is too human with his emotions but not human enough with his understanding of the world. This causes problems within the family so he must be abandoned. After this, he partners up with a robot prostitute and robot teddy bear to return to his human mother.

The boy is terrifying, obsessed with his mother and doesn't make me think of robots as humans but rather things to be avoided at all costs.I think they were trying to create a character who had very strong emotions, the opposite of what we would expect a human to have, but because they exaggerated the emotions too much it became unappealing and rather than feeling empathetic I just wanted to shut the boy up.

Jude Law, as the robot prostitute, was really interesting. Towards the end of the film, as his character was developed, he became more cheesy and unlikeable, but in the beginning he was very good. The makeup/styling of him was brilliant because he looked perfect for a robot trying to look human. He also moved in a very distinctive way which was well managed to create the idea of a robot but still very humanistic.

The film looked quite good, unfortunately it is 12 years old now so the graffics are not the best in today's standards but they are still impressive. It seems to be trying to emulate Blade Runner in the look of some of the cities, but it just can't compare.

The story was, again, creepy. It followed the obsessed little boy, who became less and less likeable as the film went on. The unhealthy obsession with his mother screamed of Freudian traumas in the writer's past and it made for slightly uncomfortable watching.

It's an interesting film and worth watching because it looks good, but the story could have been made much less disturbing and the main young, robot character could have been shown to be more relatable human, because then you could empathise with his plight more. When watching it you were very aware that he was not human and there were key points when he was meant to appear human but because throughout he had appeared so inhuman an audience would not be affected.

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