The pathetic truth is that too few of us will leave much of a

legacy when we're gone.  The world will continue to turn, the sun will

still shine, and all that's left of "Mr. or Ms. Average American" won't

bring in enough on Ebay to pay the cost of shipping.



Meanwhile, Stanley Kubrick not only left behind a lifetime of what many

consider to be towering achievements in modern cinema ("A Clockwork

Orange","2001", "Dr. Strangelove"), but the torch of his final production,

"A.I.", has been passed to Steven Spielberg - the most successful director of all

time.  A director whose entire career has been the complete polar opposite

of Kubrick in almost every sense.



The only thing these two men have in common cinematically is their names

at the end of the credits.  Yet Kubrick apparently hand-picked Spielberg to

collaborate with on "A.I." (acronym translation: Artificial Intelligence)

before his death in 1999.  There are a myriad of possible explanations:

Spielberg's remarkable track record with films featuring just two letters

of the alphabet, Kubrick's increasing mental dementia, or, hell, maybe the

guy just pushed the wrong button on speed dial!



But ten years later, the odd fruit of that collaboration sneaks into

theaters with a marketing campaign somewhere between a foreign language

film and "Pinnocchio."



Haley Joel Osment - the celebrated 13 year-old -star of "The Jeff

Foxworthy Show" and, oh yeah, "The Sixth Sense" - is equally impressive as

David, a robotic boy programmed to love, faced with a world that doesn't

love him back.  A bedtime story sets him off on a quest to

becomes a "real boy" in hopes of endearing himself to his host family.

The journey leads him through seedy futuristic cities, brutal "flesh fairs"

where robots are destroyed as spectacle, and beneath the waves of a sunken

New York City in search of the mythical "Blue Fairy."



Spielberg also adopted the Kubrick penchant for pre-release story secrecy

and is one of the few people in Hollywood with the power to keep

things quiet; not to protect some elaborate surprise ending, but to keep

the experience fresh in an age of "give it all away trailers" and loud

mouthed film critics.



But "A.I." Is not a complicated film, despite the heady philosophical

questions posed, because Spielberg is not a complicated

filmmaker.  He relies on emotional pointers to cue his audience and propel

his films.  Kubrick was the esoteric artist, and most of the art of "A.I."

died with him.  What remains is more of a tribute; like the remake of a

movie that never existed.



To be sure there are moments of greatness here the likes of which Spielberg

hasn't achieved since his "Close Encounters" days.  Visually the film

vacillates between pristine cold whiteness (Kubrick) and overblown

colorful design (guess who?), jumping from fairy tale daydreams to holocaust

nightmares.



Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski works overtime to juggle both worlds with

equal stylish bravado.  And it's nice to see Spielberg actually pay

attention to shot composition after losing himself in dinosaur movies

for most of a decade.



The story, Spielberg's first solo screenwriting credit since "Close

Encounters," begins to unravel as soon as David's internal journey moves

into the real world.  "A.I.'s" yellow brick road is suitably dark and

dangerous, but plot pot-holes keep it from being the disturbing ride it

might have been.



Jude Law does his best to save every scene he's in as Joe, the bionic

gigolo, but he's monstrously underused.  As is Teddy, David's

supertoy companion with the voice of God. The film is filled with brilliant

pieces that never connect, haunting images haunted by the ghost of Kubrick

films past.



The comparisons may be unfair, but they shouldn't be unexpected. Spielberg

knew what he was getting into when he rescued the script notes for "A.I."

out of Hollywood limbo.  He has every right to make the film his way...he

has no choice!



But that won't stop critics, audiences, and film lovers everywhere from

squinting their eyes, peeking through their fingers, and imagining the

masterpiece that might have been.