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| Haley Joel Osment, Jude Law, Frances O'Connor,
Sam Robards, William Hurt |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Professor
Allen Hobby (William Hurt): You are a real boy. At least as real
as I've ever made one.
In
the future, a robot boy programmed to attach himself emotionally to
his adopted mother is rejected by the family and sets out to become
a real boy.
 Well-publicized
for nearly a decade as Kubrick's next project, A.I. was worked
on by the errant genius for years, and finally handed to friend and
colleague Spielberg, whose sensibilities Kubrick reportedly thought
would be more in line with the project's emotional themes. As intriguing
as a Spielberg/Kubrick collaboration may sound, even a summary reflection
on the two directors' body of work would indicate how minute the chances
of such a project's success really were. One could hardly imagine a
more complete contradiction of style, content, and personality than
that between these two legendary talents: the frigid, studied intellectualism
of Kubrick opposite the techically proficient sentimentality of Spielberg.
Notwithstanding the odd combination of these two names, there are clearly
dramatic issues at the heart of the film's main premise that limit any
potential the final film might have had. An inability to successfully
crack this central flaw may have been what kept Kubrick from actually
making the movie for all those years. Spielberg however, has tackled
the film with characteristic abandon, producing his first self-penned
screenplay since Close Enounters of the Third Kind. The result
however is a sloppily structured, desperately uneven film that contains
some powerful moments but ultimately remains fatally unsure of itself.
The first of the movie's three distinct parts is the most intriguing,
as the artificial child is brought into a family grieving for a comatose
young son. The conflict and confusion that erupt between the human family
members and the robotic boy sees Spielberg revisiting the terrain of
the suburban family unit from an interesting new perspective, though
the emphasis is laid too strongly on easy sentimentality. The second
act is more problematic, providing exuberant visual thrills familiar
from this director, but an uneasy dramatic core with its two robotic
protagonists, and an annoyingly uneven pace. As the film leads towards
its increasingly baffling conclusion that sees more and more of the
Spielberg's worst kind of sentimentality erupting, A.I. offers
some gorgeous images and will fuel many a dinnertime discussion. But
it remains a deeply flawed work at best. |
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Similar
two-disc Special Edition releases are available for Region 1 and Region
2. The Region 1 release carries a DTS audio mix missing from its Region
2 counterpart, but otherwise there are no major differences between
the two. The Region 2 release served as a basis for this review. (A
fullscreen pan&scan-edition is also available for Region 1.)
The
anamorphic widescreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx.
1.85:1. Spielberg has favored a hazy, somewhat grainy look in many of
his features, and his current regular cinematographer Janusz Kaminski
carries this style to extremes in certain sequences of A.I.,
making for a sometimes problematic transfer. The visible grain and lack
of definition is a result of the film stocks and shutter times chosen
for this production, and the DVD transfer meticulously represents the
cinematographer's intent.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix does a fine job with the sound design, which
is fairly restrained throughout most of the film, with occasional aggressive
sequences exploding with rear activity and subwoofer pounding.
Although
there is no audio commentary track on this release (as per usual for a
Spielberg film), Warner has otherwise pulled out all the stops in creating
an immersive DVD experience covering all major angles of the film's production.
The DVD production crew had access to all major personnel and sets during
the shoot, as is revealed in the many featurettes on disc 2.
Disc 1 holds a five-minute featurette that's little more than a
brief introduction to the film, but a nice inclusion for the first disc,
as it's only really worth watching as a warm-up to the film. All other
extras are found on disc 2, where fifteen or so featurettes ranging in
length from five to fifteen minutes guide us through numerous technical
aspects of the film's production:
- Acting A.I. offers the film's two protagonists, played by
Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law the opportunity to talk about the unique
challenges this film offered them, and both do so articulately and
succinctly in two separate featurettes.
- Designing A.I. holds two 8-minute featurettes: "From
Drawings to Sets" with artist Chris baker (aka "Fangorn")
and set designer Rick Carter, and "Dressing A.I.," a visit
with costume designer Bob Ringwood. The Baker interview is the most
interesting, as he was one of the few artists to work with Kubrick
during the early stages of the project, and the Ringwood interview
holds a close look at each character's particular costuming requirements.
- Lighting A.I. is a short 6-minute talk with Spielberg's longtime
collaborator Janusz Kaminski, an entertaining talker who is sometimes
rather hard to undertand.
- The 8-minute Special effects featurette offers production
designer Rick Lantieri the opportunity to provide a closer look at
the "Flesh Fair" sequence and the practical effects required
to pull it off, as well as the meshing of CGI with real-world artistry
to produce the final sequence.
- The 13-minute Robots Of A.I. is one of the coolest effects
segments. After Spielberg offers a bit of perspective on what he hoped
to achieve with the visuals, Stan Winston and his team at Stan Winston
Studios, make-up artist Ve Neill, and "Voice of Teddy" Jack
Angel give us a peek at how they realized his vision.
- Rounding out the effects coverage is Special Visual Effects and
Animation: ILM, a 22-minute examination of the film's startling
visual effects told in five parts - "An Overview," "The
Robots," "The Miniatures," "New York City Sequence
Shot Progression" and "Animating A.I." Basically this
is an elaboration of what came before, with ILM's crew of animators
and designers taking the pre-shot footage and "plates,"
then adding the required CGI elements. The initial "Overview"
section adds some much-needed and enjoyable perspective on the original
gestation of the Kubrick project.
- Last but not least we have the The Sound and Music of A.I.
"Sound Design"' is a 7-minute in-studio chat with Oscar-winning
sound designer Gary Rydstrom, and the highlight here is his demonstration
of a scene, and how he plays and layers sounds into the movie. Rydstrom
also discusses his approach to realizing the film aurally, and the
preparation required recording sounds for such a daunting task as
A.I. And then we have ubiquitous Spielberg composer John Williams,
getting his 6 minutes of fame in "The Music."
Also included on this second disc are three storyboard sequences,
cast and crew portraits, two trailers, huge concept design
galleries, and some nifty DVD-ROM features. All in all, a resoundigly
complete presentation from DVD extras guru Laurent Bouzereau, let down
only by the near-complete absence of Spielberg (all he contributes is
a fairly pretentious word of warning about the real-life use of artificial
intelligence).  The
main menu screens feature nicely subtle animation on both discs. Navigation
is nicely laid-out and fairly straightforward.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: March
25, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on AI
Artificial Intelligence.
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