(rated PG-13, 146 mins.) Everyone’s been waiting for this E.T.-style-feeling flick. It’s Steven Spielberg’s return to directing (he’s been absent since 1998’s Saving Private Ryan), featuring Haley Joel Osment, in this sci-fi fantasy, about an artificial being. Professor Hobby (William Hurt) of Crynogetics laboratories proposes to develop a sensory toy with intelligent behavior that can love. A robot child that will love its parents with a ‘mecha mind.’ Enter Henry and Monica; (Sam Robbards and Frances O’Connor) who long for a child and are up for the experiment. Once imprinted with a special code, the child becomes yours for life, (and that’s putting it mildly). Jude Law does a sidekick role as the convincing robotic Gigolo Joe. Spielberg demonstrates his ingenious charm of “E.T.” and “Close Encounters” using his famous ten pages and a whammo (scene) to pump up this modern day Pinocchio (blue fairy and all). But, something is missing and perhaps like Mecha, we never really love it either. This starts-out-ok story turns overly drawn out and dramatic at the over two hours ending, leaving parents squirming and kids surely to be kicking seats in front of them.
