Sightlines · reception
How A.I. Artificial Intelligence was received
2001 · Steven Spielberg · A.I. Artificial Intelligence on Sightlines
The arc
Dismissed by many in 2001 as an awkward Kubrick-Spielberg hybrid — too cold for Spielberg fans, too sentimental for Kubrick devotees — it's since climbed into 'best of the century' conversations, with critic Mark Kermode famously issuing a public apology to Spielberg for panning it.
What’s debated
The eternal fight: is the ending saccharine Spielberg schmaltz or the bleakest thing he ever shot — especially once fans learned which parts were actually Kubrick's ideas and which were Spielberg's.
Its footprint
Its viral marketing spawned 'The Beast,' the legendary alternate reality game that started with a mysterious 'sentient machine therapist' credit hidden in the trailer — a founding moment of ARG culture.
Where it stands
A textbook canon climber: the misunderstood-in-its-time film that cinephiles now hand you as proof that turn-of-the-century Spielberg was doing his strangest, most daring work.
Did you know? Haley Joel Osment deliberately never blinks on camera as David — a detail he devised himself to keep the robot boy subtly, uncannily inhuman.
Named by the director
- Stanley Kubrick — Spielberg openly made the film as a continuation of Kubrick's decades-long project, working from Kubrick's treatment and hundreds of his commissioned storyboards after Kubrick personally urged him to direct it.