Editing A.I. Artificial Intelligence (section)

===Critical response===
On [[Rotten Tomatoes]], ''A.I. Artificial Intelligence'' holds an approval rating of 76% based on reviews from 201 critics, with an average rating of 6.60/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "A curious, not always seamless, amalgamation of Kubrick's chilly bleakness and Spielberg's warm-hearted optimism. ''A.I.'' is, in a word, fascinating."<ref>{{cite web |title=A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ai_artificial_intelligence/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080708094802/http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/ai_artificial_intelligence/ |archive-date=July 8, 2008 |access-date=March 4, 2025|work=[[Rotten Tomatoes]] |publisher=[[Fandango Media]]}}</ref> On [[Metacritic]], it has a [[weighted arithmetic mean|weighted average]] score of 65 out of 100 based on reviews from 32 critics, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.metacritic.com/movie/artificial-intelligence-ai |title=Artificial Intelligence: A.I. Reviews |website=[[Metacritic]] |publisher=[[CBS Interactive]] |access-date=July 8, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100818021242/http://www.metacritic.com/movie/artificial-intelligence-ai |archive-date=August 18, 2010}}</ref> Audiences surveyed by [[CinemaScore]] gave the film an average grade of "C+" on a scale of A+ to F.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.cinemascore.com/publicsearch/index/title/ |title=A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001) C+ |work=[[CinemaScore]] |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181220122629/https://www.cinemascore.com/publicsearch/index/title/ |archive-date=2018-12-20}}</ref>

Producer Jan Harlan stated that Kubrick "would have applauded" the final film, while Kubrick's widow [[Christiane Kubrick|Christiane]] also enjoyed ''A.I''.<ref>{{Cite news |first=Army |last=Archerd |author-link=Army Archerd |url=https://variety.com/2001/film/columns/a-i-a-spielberg-kubrick-prod-n-1117801772/ |title=''A.I.'' A Spielberg/Kubrick prod'n |work=Variety |date=June 20, 2000 |access-date=August 6, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120043831/http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117801772 |archive-date=January 20, 2012}}</ref> Brian Aldiss admired the film as well: "I thought what an inventive, intriguing, ingenious, involving film this was. There are flaws in it and I suppose I might have a personal quibble but it's so long since I wrote it." Of the film's ending, he wondered how it might have been had Kubrick directed the film: "That is one of the 'ifs' of film history—at least the ending indicates Spielberg adding some sugar to Kubrick's wine. The actual ending is overly sympathetic and moreover rather overtly engineered by a plot device that does not really bear credence. But it's a brilliant piece of film and of course it's a phenomenon because it contains the energies and talents of two brilliant filmmakers."<ref>{{cite news |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/artificial_intelligence/1542794.stm |title=Artificial Intelligence &#124; The mind behind AI |work=BBC News |date=September 20, 2001 |access-date=November 2, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131021220659/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/sci_tech/2001/artificial_intelligence/1542794.stm |archive-date=October 21, 2013}}</ref>

[[A. O. Scott]] writes: "Mr. Spielberg seems to be attempting the improbable feat of melding Kubrick's chilly, analytical style with his own warmer, needier sensibility. He tells the story slowly and films it with lucid, mesmerizing objectivity, creating a mood as layered, dissonant and strange as [[John Williams]]'s unusually restrained, modernist score." He concludes: "The very end somehow fuses the cathartic comfort of infantile wish fulfillment -- the dream that the first perfect love whose loss we experience as the fall from Eden might be restored -- with a feeling almost too terrible to acknowledge or to name. Refusing to cuddle us or lull us into easy sleep, Mr. Spielberg locates the unspoken moral of all our fairy tales. To be real is to be mortal; to be human is to love, to dream and to perish."<ref name=Scott>{{cite news| title=Do Androids Long For Mom?| author=[[A. O. Scott]]| date=June 29, 2001| work=[[The New York Times]]| url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/29/movies/film-review-do-androids-long-for-mom.html}}</ref>

[[Richard Corliss]] of ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' magazine heavily praised Spielberg's direction, as well as the cast and visual effects.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0,8599,130942,00.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626072644/http://www.time.com/time/sampler/article/0%2C8599%2C130942%2C00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 26, 2008 |title=''A.I.''&nbsp;– Spielberg's Strange Love |magazine=Time |date=June 17, 2001 |access-date=April 1, 2017}}</ref>

[[Roger Ebert]] of the ''[[Chicago Sun-Times]]'' gave the film three stars out of a possible four, saying that it is "wonderful and maddening".<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ai-artificial-intelligence-2001 |title=A.I. Artificial Intelligence Movie Review (2001) |work=Chicago Sun-Times |via=RogerEbert.com |date=July 7, 2011 |access-date=April 1, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170618132655/http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/amp/ai-artificial-intelligence-2001 |archive-date=June 18, 2017}}</ref> Ebert later gave the film a full four stars and added it to his "Great Movies" canon in 2011.<ref>{{cite web |last=Ebert |first=Roger |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-ai-artificial-intelligence-2001 |title=He just wanted to be a real boy |work=Chicago Sun-Times |via=RogerEbert.com |date=July 7, 2011 |access-date=April 1, 2017}}</ref>

[[Leonard Maltin]], on the other hand, gives the film two stars out of four in his ''[[Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide|Movie Guide]]'', writing, "[The] intriguing story draws us in, thanks in part to Osment's exceptional performance, but takes several wrong turns; ultimately, it just doesn't work. Spielberg rewrote the adaptation Stanley Kubrick commissioned of the Brian Aldiss short story ''Super Toys Last All Summer Long''; [the] result is a curious and uncomfortable hybrid of Kubrick and Spielberg sensibilities." However, Maltin called John Williams's music score "striking".

[[Jonathan Rosenbaum]] of the ''[[Chicago Reader]]'' compared ''A.I.'' to ''[[Solaris (1972 film)|Solaris]]'' (1972), and praised both "Kubrick for proposing that Spielberg direct the project and Spielberg for doing his utmost to respect Kubrick's intentions while making it a profoundly personal work".<ref name=Rosenbaum>{{Cite news |author-link=Jonathan Rosenbaum |last=Rosenbaum |first=Jonathan |url=http://www.chicagoreader.com/movies/archives/2001/0107/010713.html |title=The Best of Both Worlds |work=[[Chicago Reader]] |date=June 29, 2001 }}</ref> In 2009, he described ''A.I.'' as "a very great and deeply misunderstood film", noting that [[Andrew Sarris]], [[Stan Brakhage]] and [[James Naremore]] "more or less" agreed with this assessment.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Rosenbaum |first=Jonathan |date=2009-12-14 |title=Films of the decade: "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" |url=https://www.salon.com/2009/12/14/rosenbaum_2/ |access-date=2023-11-26 |website=Salon |language=en}}</ref>

Film critic [[Armond White]] of the ''[[New York Press]]'' praised the film, noting that "each part of David's journey through carnal and sexual universes into the final eschatological devastation becomes as profoundly philosophical and contemplative as anything by cinema's most thoughtful, speculative artists&nbsp;– [[Frank Borzage|Borzage]], [[Yasujirō Ozu|Ozu]], [[Jacques Demy|Demy]], [[Andrei Tarkovsky|Tarkovsky]]."<ref>{{cite web |first=Armond |last=White |date=July 4, 2001 |url=http://www.nypress.com/spielbergs-ai-dares-viewers-to-remember-and-accept-the-part-of-themselves-that-is-capable-of-feeling/ |title=Spielberg's A.I. Dares Viewers to Remember and Accept the Part of Themselves that Is Capable of Feeling |work=[[The New York Press]] |access-date=April 26, 2010 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151003222152/http://www.nypress.com/spielbergs-ai-dares-viewers-to-remember-and-accept-the-part-of-themselves-that-is-capable-of-feeling/ |archive-date=October 3, 2015}}</ref>

Filmmaker [[Billy Wilder]] hailed ''A.I.'' as "the most underrated film of the past few years".<ref>{{cite web |url=http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/17/spielberg.award/index.html |title=Close encounters of the hugely profitable kind |work=CNN |date=November 17, 2006 |access-date=October 2, 2015 |first=Paul |last=Sussman |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305093555/http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Movies/11/17/spielberg.award/index.html |archive-date=March 5, 2016}}</ref> When British filmmaker [[Ken Russell]] saw the film, he wept during the ending.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://slippedisc.com/2011/12/eyewitness-ken-russell-by-his-son/ |title=Eyewitness: Ken Russell, by his son |website=Slipped Disc |date=December 7, 2011 |access-date=April 13, 2017 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160405072153/http://slippedisc.com/2011/12/eyewitness-ken-russell-by-his-son/ |archive-date=April 5, 2016}}</ref>

Screenwriter [[Ian Watson (author)|Ian Watson]] has speculated, "Worldwide, ''A.I.'' was very successful (and the 4th-highest earner of the year) but it didn't do quite so well in America, because the film, so I'm told, was too poetical and intellectual in general for American tastes. Plus, quite a few critics in America misunderstood the film, thinking for instance that the [[Alberto Giacometti|Giacometti]]-style beings in the final 20 minutes were [[Extraterrestrial life|aliens]] (whereas they were robots of the future who had evolved themselves from the robots in the earlier part of the film) and also thinking that the final 20 minutes were a sentimental addition by Spielberg, whereas those scenes were exactly what I wrote for Stanley and exactly what he wanted, filmed faithfully by Spielberg."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.moonmilkreview.com/2010/author-talk-ian-watson-2/ |title=Author Talk: Ian Watson |website=Moon Milk Review |date=May 10, 2010 |access-date=April 7, 2012 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425150715/http://www.moonmilkreview.com/2010/author-talk-ian-watson-2/ |archive-date=April 25, 2012}}</ref>{{efn|group=note|  Despite Mr. Watson's reference to worldwide box office of 4th, the movie actually finished 16th worldwide among 2001 movie releases.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.the-numbers.com/box-office-records/worldwide/all-movies/cumulative/released-in-2001 |title=Top 2001 Movies at the Worldwide Box Office |website=The Numbers}}</ref>}}

[[Mick LaSalle]] of the ''[[San Francisco Chronicle]]'' gave a largely negative review. "''A.I.'' exhibits all its creators' bad traits and none of the good. So we end up with the structureless, meandering, slow-motion endlessness of Kubrick combined with the fuzzy, cuddly mindlessness of Spielberg." Dubbing it Spielberg's "first boring movie", LaSalle also believed that the robots at the end of the film were aliens, and compared Gigolo Joe to the "useless" [[Jar Jar Binks]], yet praised Robin Williams for his portrayal of a futuristic [[Albert Einstein]].<ref>{{Cite news |author-link=Mick LaSalle |last=LaSalle |first=Mick |url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2001/06/29/DD239232.DTL |title=Artificial foolishness |work=[[San Francisco Chronicle]] |date=June 29, 2001 |access-date=August 6, 2008 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815082644/http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fc%2Fa%2F2001%2F06%2F29%2FDD239232.DTL |archive-date=August 15, 2009}}</ref>{{failed verification |date=August 2013}}

[[Peter Travers]] of ''[[Rolling Stone]]'' magazine gave a mixed review, concluding, "Spielberg cannot live up to Kubrick's darker side of the future", but still put the film on his top ten list that year.<ref>{{Cite news |author-link=Peter Travers |last=Travers |first=Peter |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/reviews/movie/5949345/review/5949346/ai_artificial_intelligence |title=A.I. Artificial Intelligence |work=[[Rolling Stone (magazine)|Rolling Stone]] |date=June 21, 2001 |access-date=August 6, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120501160219/http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews |archive-date=May 1, 2012}}</ref>

[[David Denby]] in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' criticized ''A.I.'' for not adhering closely to his concept of the Pinocchio character.

Spielberg responded to some of the criticisms of the film, stating that many of the "so called sentimental" elements of ''A.I.'', including the ending, were in fact Kubrick's, and the darker elements were his own.<ref>{{cite episode |title=Steven Spielberg |series=The Culture Show |series-link=The Culture Show |credits=[[Mark Kermode]] |station=[[BBC Two]] |airdate=November 4, 2006}}</ref> However, Sara Maitland, who worked on the project with Kubrick in the 1990s, said that Kubrick never started production on ''A.I.'' because he had a hard time making the ending work.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index2.html#slot14 |title=The Kubrick FAQ Part 2 |website=Visual-memory.co.uk |access-date=April 7, 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120204153822/http://www.visual-memory.co.uk/faq/index2.html#slot14 |archive-date=February 4, 2012}}</ref>

[[James Berardinelli]] found the film "consistently involving, with moments of near-brilliance, but far from a masterpiece. In fact, as the long-awaited 'collaboration' of Kubrick and Spielberg, it ranks as something of a disappointment." Of the film's highly debated finale, he claimed, "There is no doubt that the concluding 30 minutes are all Spielberg; the outstanding question is where Kubrick's vision left off and Spielberg's began."<ref>{{cite web |last=Berardnelli |first=James |url=http://preview.reelviews.net/movies/a/ai.html |title=Review: A.I |website=ReelViews |access-date=November 2, 2013}}</ref>

[[John Simon (critic)|John Simon]] of the ''[[National Review]]'' described ''A.I.'' "as an uneasy mix of trauma and treacle".<ref>{{cite book |title=John Simon on Film: Criticism 1982-2001 |last1=Simon |first1=John |publisher=Applause Books |year=2005 |page=655}}</ref>

In 2002, Spielberg told film critic [[Joe Leydon]], "People pretend to think they know Stanley Kubrick, and think they know me, when most of them don't know either of us... And what's really funny about that is, all the parts of ''A.I.'' that people assume were Stanley's were mine. And all the parts of ''A.I.'' that people accuse me of sweetening and softening and sentimentalizing were all Stanley's. The teddy bear was Stanley's. The whole last 20 minutes of the movie was completely Stanley's. The whole first 35, 40 minutes of the film—all the stuff in the house—was word for word, from Stanley's screenplay. This was Stanley's vision... Eighty percent of the critics got it all mixed up. But I could see why. Because, obviously, I've done a lot of movies where people have cried and have been sentimental. And I've been accused of sentimentalizing hard-core material. But in fact it was Stanley who did the sweetest parts of ''A.I.'', not me. I'm the guy who did the dark center of the movie, with the Flesh Fair and everything else. That's why he wanted me to make the movie in the first place. He said, 'This is much closer to your sensibilities than my own.{{'"}}<ref>{{cite news |last=Leydon |first=Joe |author-link=Joe Leydon |url=http://www.movingpictureshow.com/dialogues/mpsSpielbergCruise.html |title='Minority Report' looks at the day after tomorrow&nbsp;-- and is relevant to today <!-- Apparently accidental typos in quoted refs should be "silently" repaired. --> |work=Moving Picture Show |date=June 20, 2002 |access-date=April 29, 2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090815010940/http://www.movingpictureshow.com/dialogues/mpsSpielbergCruise.html |archive-date=August 15, 2009}}</ref> Spielberg said, "While there was divisiveness when ''A.I.'' came out, I felt that I had achieved Stanley's wishes, or goals."<ref>{{Cite magazine |last=Breznican |first=Anthony |url=https://ew.com/article/2011/12/02/steven-spielberg-ew-interview/ |title=Steven Spielberg: The EW interview |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |date=December 2, 2011}}</ref>

On re-watching the film many years after its release, [[BBC]] film critic [[Mark Kermode]] apologized to Spielberg in a January 2013 interview for "getting it wrong" on the film when he first viewed it in 2001. He came to believe that the film is Spielberg's "enduring masterpiece".<ref>{{cite web |first=Mark |last=Kermode |author-link=Mark Kermode |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/posts/AI-Apology |title=Blogs&nbsp;– Kermode Uncut&nbsp;– ''AI'' Apology |work=BBC |date=January 22, 2013 |access-date=November 2, 2013 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131016222214/http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/posts/AI-Apology |archive-date=October 16, 2013}}</ref>

In March 2025, ''[[The New York Times]]'' listed ''A.I.'' as among "The Movies We've Loved Since 2000."<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 17, 2025 |title=The Movies We've Loved Since 2000 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/movies/best-movies-since-2000.html |access-date=April 10, 2025 |website=[[The New York Times]] }}</ref>