Here's a cinematic stumper: what if a Stanley Kubrick film and a Steven Spielberg film mated and produced offspring? Could it survive? Would audiences embrace a colder, darker Spielberg or a warmer, friendlier Kubrick? This summer provides the answer. The offspring would be A.I.: Artificial Intelligence - a film that thrives for two hours before dying painful death in the last forty minutes.

What can you say about a film with such a high purpose and noble intentions when it self-destructs so obviously and frustratingly in front of you? The acting is top notch, the special effects are amazing, as are the sets, cinematography and art direction. This is not a lazy film - it's a film that tries to be too much to too many.

A.I. opens years in the future after the polar ice caps have melted, and natural resources are scarce. Mechas, or androids, are particularly useful as they never need food or rest. They have become the working underclass of the future. As well, most couples are never allowed to have children because society cannot support more humans. One Cybertronics Inc. professor sees the potential market in this, and pitches his latest idea to a roomful of colleagues - a robotic child programmed to love.

The prototype, David (Haley Joel Osment), is sent to live with Henry Swinton (Sam Robards), a Cybertronics employee. He and his wife Monica (Frances O'Connor) are mourning the loss of their son, who is being kept in a cryogenic coma in the unlikely event that his fatal disease can be cured. Monica is horrified by David at first, and rejects the idea of replacing her beloved son with a mecha. It seems unlikely that she will activate the irreversible protocol that will bind David to her forever with artificial love.

Of course she will, and it is this part of the film that is truly engrossing. Haley Joel Osment is outstanding in his ability to make David cold, yet endearing as the pre-love robot boy. Once he becomes a real "son", Osment's face becomes a canvas for joy, confusion, and concern. He not only brings David to life, but the whole film as well.

The inevitable return of the Swinton's son Martin begins the fall of David from their good graces. He can't compete with a real boy, and once he hears Monica read the story of Pinocchio, David becomes obsessed with the idea of becoming "real" and winning his mother's love forever. Despite the warnings of his robotic toy bear, Teddy, David is talked into several dangerous stunts by the jealous Martin, and is deemed a threat to the family. Knowing that he will be destroyed if he is returned to Cybertronics, Monica abandons a devastated David with Teddy in the woods.

At this point, A.I. switches gears completely and becomes a darker film. David meets love mecha Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) and learns the hazards of "Flesh Fairs" - festivals where humans gather to gleefully destroy robots. Joe understands and accepts his place in the human world, and finds David's desire to be real hard to fathom. Their journey takes them to the sex themed Rouge City and finally to the partially drowned Manhattan in search of Pinocchio's Blue Fairy - the only person who can turn David into a real boy.

These first two hours are beautiful, if not always gripping, cinema. The first hour is pure Spielberg, which is to say it pulses with the frailty and mystery of the family dynamic. David watches Monica adoringly; capturing every moment with her, fretting that the fifty years she promises to be with him is too short. What Spielberg understands is that childhood does last forever, at least in some part of our hearts and minds. As we mature, we learn to let go. David never will.

Hour two is Kubrick filtered through Spielberg, and it doesn't quite work, but it's fun to watch nonetheless. It's bleak-lite. Whenever things get too horrific, the mood is lightened. The presence of Teddy, with his oddly comforting monotone voice insures that neither David nor the audience will be left alone in the dark.