After proving a danger to the son he was supposed to replace, a cyborg (Haley Joel Osment), is cast out in the wilderness by the mother he was programmed to love and desperately seeks The Blue Fairy he learned of in Pinocchio lore in order to transform him into a real boy. Steven Spielberg's working of material developed by Stanley Kubrick is light sci-fi with an incomplete feel, often fascinating and always watchable while still arriving in an unsatisfying place. Some of this material seams ideally suited to the director and other, more darker parts of the story just don't. Osment is rightly cast and William Hurt is excellent as the Geppetto cipher.
** 1/2 out of ****
