``Want to Be a Human,`` Futuristic Pinocchio

Could this product be one or the other? The masterpiece that achieved the outstanding beauty of art and the box office success or a poor work that failed in the beauty and the business, when the masters of the artistic films and the commercialized films meet together.

A.I. has attracted the attentions from the film buffs in that Steven Spielberg, the show projector of Hollywood, took over the posthumous project of Stanley Kubrick, the film master.

The movie is a story about a boy-robot who tries to be a human to receive the love of `Mother (Francis O’Connor),` who is a human being.

The movie is divided in three sections. David (Haley Joel Osment) is an 11-year-old boy robot with emotions. The Swintons adopted David as a son instead of their son by blood who has been in a coma, hospitalized in a freezer. However, the real son who is miraculously revived returns home, and now exclusively possess the mother`s love. And the first section closes with the scene of the mother throwing away David in the forest, fearing that David might hurt her real son with jealousy.

The second section shows the journey of David, who believes that he could receive the mother`s love if he become a human being, to find a `blue fairy` who turned Pinocchio into a real human in the fairy tale.

The last section jumps over 2000 years. The futuristic tribe of the earth, looking like aliens, found David who is frozen in front of a blue fairy statue.

Spielberg and Kubrick co-exist in this movie. Steven Spielberg paid his reverence to master Kubrick, fusing the images of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove, and Clockwork Orange, and the A-Discussion. The slow discovery of the first section is more like Kubrick. However, the adventures of the little boy who tries to go back to the mother remind of `E.T.` by Spielberg, in addition to the fairy tale plots mixed with `Pinocchio` and `The Wizard of Oz.` At the closing scene where Kubrick would have ended it sharply with a doom mood, Spielberg rounded it off with a fairy touch.

The serious ethical questions of the movie are driven from Kubrick. In the introduction of the film, he raised a question through the mouth of a scientist, ``What are the responsibilities of human being for the robots who have emotion?``

A.I. recorded No. 1 in the box-office only the first week. Some ridicules that Kubrick who can never be a popular director `won No. 1 with the help of Spielberg.` For Spielberg, the film is not a success. Rather the movie is acclaimed in Japan, recording the best success of the opening weekend.

This film might be disappointment for the Kubrick maniacs or the Spielberg fans. It`s too warm to be one of the Kubrick`s and too cold to be one of the Spielberg`s. However, the two masters who can be described as `ice and fire` successfully reaches chemistry in the 2 hr 24 min playing.

Based on the idea of Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg created a fairy tale for adults, which is full of futuristic imaginations with special effects and deep emotions.

Opens on Aug. 10.

sjkang@donga.com