Artificial Intelligence takes place in a future where global warming has caused sea levels to rise, flooding out coastal cities, with a response by wealthy countries to strictly limit child birth (and corresponding population growth) and a corresponding rise in robot workers and assistants. The movie opens with a company aiming to create a robot that can love, a child robot that will fill the gap for couples who want children but can't have them, with more profits from the sales in this new market.
Part one of the movie is incredibly powerful. It focuses on the first prototype child robot, David, living with a family whose own child, Michael, has been in a coma for years. Shortly after David becomes integrated into the family, Michael comes out of his coma and returns home. This segment is very moving, raising ethical questions about love and loss, and showing family dynamics and struggles.
Part two finds David largely on his own, with only Teddy as his companion. This is where the movie starts falling apart. Initially, the scenes with the Flesh Fair are interesting, showing a sort of religious sect bent on an anti-robot mission. There's a Mad Max aspect to these scenes, but they succeed in making you feel something for the machines and you see the moral failings of some of the people involved. From there, things get weird. Joe the Gigalo, a pleasure droid, teams up with David and they go on an adventure to find the Blue Fairy (from the Pinocchio fable) so that David can become a real boy and return home. The plot gets increasingly odd. After visiting Rouge City - some sort of red light district - they steal a police helicopter/submersible and go to Manhattan, a flooded out city that somehow is still hosting the research lab for the David model of robot.
Part three is where the aliens come. David parks his submersible on the ocean floor and prays to a blue fairy statue in the flooded Coney Island. He does this for two thousand years, ending up frozen there until eventually discovered by the aliens, at which point all of the humans are dead. Teddy, the most redeeming, selfless character in the entire movie, saves the day by offering a lock of the mother's hair, so the aliens can resurrect the mother for one day, allowing David one day of joy before he seemingly powers down in an act of android suicide, leaving poor Teddy all alone forever. We aren't told whether the aliens keep him company afterwards.
Parts of the movie are moving, parts are bizarre, and the whole thing feels overly long, but it's worth watching once.
Part one of the movie is incredibly powerful. It focuses on the first prototype child robot, David, living with a family whose own child, Michael, has been in a coma for years. Shortly after David becomes integrated into the family, Michael comes out of his coma and returns home. This segment is very moving, raising ethical questions about love and loss, and showing family dynamics and struggles.
Part two finds David largely on his own, with only Teddy as his companion. This is where the movie starts falling apart. Initially, the scenes with the Flesh Fair are interesting, showing a sort of religious sect bent on an anti-robot mission. There's a Mad Max aspect to these scenes, but they succeed in making you feel something for the machines and you see the moral failings of some of the people involved. From there, things get weird. Joe the Gigalo, a pleasure droid, teams up with David and they go on an adventure to find the Blue Fairy (from the Pinocchio fable) so that David can become a real boy and return home. The plot gets increasingly odd. After visiting Rouge City - some sort of red light district - they steal a police helicopter/submersible and go to Manhattan, a flooded out city that somehow is still hosting the research lab for the David model of robot.
Part three is where the aliens come. David parks his submersible on the ocean floor and prays to a blue fairy statue in the flooded Coney Island. He does this for two thousand years, ending up frozen there until eventually discovered by the aliens, at which point all of the humans are dead. Teddy, the most redeeming, selfless character in the entire movie, saves the day by offering a lock of the mother's hair, so the aliens can resurrect the mother for one day, allowing David one day of joy before he seemingly powers down in an act of android suicide, leaving poor Teddy all alone forever. We aren't told whether the aliens keep him company afterwards.
Parts of the movie are moving, parts are bizarre, and the whole thing feels overly long, but it's worth watching once.