Spielberg's success and influence are undisputed. He's had too many generational huge movies to bother listing here, and his ROI is among the best all-time.

I'm not sure which is his "best" film, but - from Jaws _to _Raiders _to _Schindler's List to Amistad _to... - I am sure _A.I Artificial Intelligence is not it.

Spielberg's attempt to meld sci-fi with emotion irks me. I never saw ET, but the talking points from it I've heard over the years bear little in the sci-fi conversation. He just seems to have difficulty committing in a gritty, real way, to either. I did see AI, and wrote a review that, looking back, may have been overly critical; nonetheless, many smarter people than me observed that the tone of the film as it passed from Kubrick's hand to Spielberg's midway through the film changed from some good stuff to some not-so-good stuff.

Specifics? His treatment of the enduring human questions of meaning, where we come from, why we're here, seemed trite, shallow, hardly provocative,safe, uninspired, adding nothing of substance, unambitious, yet pompous, insulting and utterly lacking in humility. Movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey or Contact demonstrate some humility, leave room for awe, embrace the reality of the limits of our capacities, and celebration of imagination in the absence of any consensus about the problem of human sentience. These two movies are just two examples of films that get it, that acknowledge doubt; but AI seems to wrap it all up nicely, like we've got it all figured out.

Even his nomenclature is annoying to me. A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Yeah, we know what AI stands for, why bother spelling it out? Craft would have been using different words to show a new dimension or angle to it. Or, if you're going to just say Artificial Intelligence, why bother adding AI at the front? He did the same stupid thing with ET, The Extra-Terrestrial. Seems he has this need to dummy down the title below any threshold that can hold higher dialog or philosophical tension.

Yes, I admit and agree, I could be overly harsh. He told a story, and there's no burden to remain limited to our reality. It's a "what if this is it" position that has as much merit as any other. So, I could be way off in my disdain for this film.

I think a more balanced attempt at bringing together slick technology/special effects in a humane story that has some philosophical rigour is Minority Report. That was pretty gritty. Shucks, even Jurassic Park featured reasonable philosophical rigour and some gritty story points and scenes.

But, in this vein, maybe I should go back and watch Close Encounters of the Third Kind again (I hardly remember it).

the movie is 16 years old now so I'm due a rewatch. I don't think it was well regarded in its day. JP is my favourite Spielberg movie. Maybe Schindlers list will be his most enduring contribution to cinema as its represents humanity at its best and worst.

I liked A.I but apparently it gets a lot of hate because of the ending. So it generally isn't as highly regarded by people as his other films like Jaws or Jurassic Park.

It's a debatable topic. I think my heart will always belong to E.T as the best Spielberg film.

Nowhere near his best imo. Might his most ambitious but it's seriously flawed. Still a good watch though.

@allwork15 said:

I liked A.I but apparently it gets a lot of hate because of the ending. So it generally isn't as highly regarded by people as his other films like Jaws or Jurassic Park.

It's a debatable topic. I think my heart will always belong to E.T as the best Spielberg film.

ET is such an iconic movie and has a great score. But I've always found it's slow pacing to be a hinderance. Hard to pay attention.

If you look at much of Spielberg's films, he always adopts a steady pace to create maximum impact in the latter parts of his movies. The storytelling in THE BFG recently was so unhurried. Refreshing in a way.

i like what people were calling flaws when it was released... the change in tone from first part of the film to the latter part... the non-kubrick ending...

these things elevate the movie... it's like we got a great mashup of two great filmmakers in a subject that is deep enough to absorb both perspectives... we get the detached, objective Kubrickian look at society and it's interaction with technology, but we also get Speilberg's sentimentality which sucks us into the story on a subjective level... so good

It's also a film that stands up to a second viewing now that it's been several years since it's release... you'll undoubtably bring something different to the experience as we've experienced a lot of technological development, but have also grown and probably considered our own mortality as well as have children of our own or have thought about the idea...

@Renovatio said:

i like what people were calling flaws when it was released... the change in tone from first part of the film to the latter part... the non-kubrick ending...

these things elevate the movie... it's like we got a great mashup of two great filmmakers in a subject that is deep enough to absorb both perspectives... we get the detached, objective Kubrickian look at society and it's interaction with technology, but we also get Speilberg's sentimentality which sucks us into the story on a subjective level... so good

It's also a film that stands up to a second viewing now that it's been several years since it's release... you'll undoubtably bring something different to the experience as we've experienced a lot of technological development, but have also grown and probably considered our own mortality as well as have children of our own or have thought about the idea...

The ending was actually Kubrick's idea, not Spielberg's, according to Wikipedia:

"In 2002, Spielberg told film critic Joe Leydon that "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."

Thats incredible!

You can't blame us for not thinking that the guy who directed Barry Lyndon would have a scene as touching as those in A.I.?!

I guess we underestimated both of these directors... I was blown away by Spielberg in Minority Report as well. Didn't think he could pull off a sci-fi neo-noir-thriller...

@Renovatio said:

Spielberg's best film?

one of his best IMO, He should do a remake of this