David (Haley Joel Osmont) is a Mecha boy, a robot prototype, who thinks and feels like a real boy. Monica and Henry (Frances O'Conner and Sam Robards), whose natural son is in a vegetative state, afford him a wary welcome, the mother's need overcoming her trepidation. Then when their own son makes a miraculous recovery, sibling rivalry gets out of hand, and Monica abandons the surrogate in the woods to fend for himself. A schophrenic animal, Kubrick's and Spielberg's love child begins in cerebral sci-fi mode before switching abruptly into a heart-rending fairytale redolent of E.T., The Wizard of Oz and especially Pinocchio. Spielberg adopted the project and, whatever Kubrick's input may have been, took sole screenwriting credit for the first time since Close Encounters. So, A.I. is ambitious, personal and revealing. A film about childhood as opposed to a film for kids. It has more than its share of beauty, wonders and mysteries. The SFX are miraculous, O'Conner [below] and Osmont scarcely less so. At heart its a terrifically anguished expression of rejection, lonliness and love. Tom Charity, TimeOut [altered substantially by Esco] 
