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09/16/2001 Archived Entry: "AI 3"

Today I watched Artificial Intelligence for the third time. The first time was at the world premiere in Amsterdam; the second time was at a cinema in Seattle and this time I watched it with my friends in the UK. Three countries, three screenings.

Usually I become impatient if I watch a movie for the second time around. I wait until it gets to the good bits, I'm annoyed at the slowness of the dull parts. With AI, I found it to be pretty interesting - I saw several things that I hadn't picked up on before and I still enjoyed thinking about the ending.

One of the principal reasons why I watched it for the third (and last - at least at a cinema) time was because I wanted to see the reactions of my friends. It's always a difficult thing, gauging people's reactions, especially in a case such as this one since people knew that I'd been involved with the movie to some small extent and they might have been worried about offending me if they said they hated the movie. Perhaps they weren't worried, but that's not the point - the possibility still existed.

So really, to find out what people think, you have to ask them questions. You have to give them time, and then you have to ask the right questions. No spoilers here, incidentally.

Did you think it had a happy ending?

- Well, I don't know. It's not an ending which you can point to and say definitively, yes, that was a happy ending, or no, I thought it was utterly depressing.

Did you enjoy the film?

- What do you mean by that? Did I feel happy at the end of the movie? I don't know. Is 'enjoy' really the right word to use here?

Did you think the film was good?

- Not a precise enough question; what's 'good' supposed to mean? I suppose, yes, it was a good film, but I don't know whether I share my definition of the word with you.

Did you think the film was worth watching?

- Ah, now you've made a suitable question. I did think the film was worth watching, I thought it was interesting. It doesn't matter whether I thought it was happy or sad. What matters is that I think that it was worth the admission price to watch the film and that I'm better off, in some intangible way, having seen it rather than having not.