SOURCE: Arthur, Paul. “Movie of the Moment: A.I.: Artificial Intelligence.” Film Comment 37, no. 4 (July-August 2001): 22-3.

In the following review, Arthur perceives A.I.: Artificial Intelligence to be an unsuccessful amalgamation of Spielberg's optimism and sentimentality and Stanley Kubrick's pessimism.

It was certainly not a match made in heaven, nor in any other unearthly realm save perhaps the corporate boardrooms and high-tech workshops of Tinseltown. Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg, together at last. The Prince of Bleak and the Emperor of Ice Cream. Two absolute potentates of cinema ruling kingdoms notoriously disparate in commercial clout, thematic climate (cloudy/sunny), production tempo (slow/fast), and the social stamp of their admiring subjects (elite/hoi polloi). Nonetheless, the eagerly anticipated and—given its eerie creative synergy—aptly titled A.I: Artificial Intelligence marks the culmination of a 20-year friendship conducted mostly by phone and fax. The film was spurred by...