Spielberg: Artificial Intelligence: A.I. part 2
Act I of A.I. ends with the news of Monica’s son Martin awakening from his sleep. Act II (30:00 – 52:00) then deals with the consequences of that development. It also represents a first for a Spielberg movie — the narrative switches protagonists at the act break. Up to this point, it’s looked like Monica is the protagonist of A.I., but in the fade that occurs at 30:00 the point of view shifts decidedly to David, and will remain there for the rest of the movie (although it could be argued that it shifts again at the beginning of Act V).
Spielberg: Artificial Intelligence: A.I. part 1
WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? David is a little-boy robot who has been programmed to love a woman he believes to be his mother. When she rejects him he vows to do whatever it takes to gain her love. This, to his little-boy-robot mind, involves tracking down "the Blue Fairy," a character from Pinocchio, so that he, like Pinocchio, can become a "real boy." The result is Spielberg’s strangest curveball, a movie that combines the solid, earned, heartfelt sentiment of Spielberg with the cold, wicked, despairing cynicism of Kubrick (who developed the movie for years before turning it over to Spielberg). Parts of it are almost unbearably sad, other parts are almost as unbearably creepy. Like many "important" Spielberg movies, it has five acts.