How sad is this?

Good concept, poorly executed.

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Mulligan drives Daryl while being chased by a helicopter. Daryl is released into the woods and found by an elderly couple. Mulligan drives his car over a cliff. Daryl is given to children's services. Childless couple Joyce (Mary Beth Hurt) and Andy Richardson (Michael McKean) become his foster parents. Turtle Fox and his family are their neighbor friends. Daryl has amnesia but he seems to have special abilities especially with computers.I love Daryl and I love Turtle. It's a fun family movie. It's dripping with 80's nostalgia. This is somewhat a Pinocchio story. Daryl is trying to figure out how to be a boy. It's a new spin on the story. I would definitely love to see a remake with a better cinematic sense and style. The second half takes place at the lab and then escaping from the lab. It drags a bit at times. It gets darker and less fun. It becomes less believable. This movie has flaws but it's still good.

I love this film and feel it is an underrated classic. Although I am a 90s kid, I am very fond of the movies of the 80s, Amadeus, Clue, Back to the Future, Indianna Jones, Beetle Juice, ET, Annie, Secret of NIMH, NeverEnding Story, Stand By Me, Legend, Princess Bride and Who Framed Roger Rabbit to name a few. D.A.R.Y.L has very nice cinematography, colourful sets and costumes without being too fancy and good special effects, while the soundtrack is cool. I liked the script too, it was funny and heart-warming and the story was engaging and poignant as well as briskly paced. The direction I had no problem with either, while the acting is fine especially with Barrett Oliver who is simply wonderful in the lead. Overall, I think D.A.R.Y.L is a classic, and one of the most underrated films of the 80s if not ever. 10/10 Bethany Cox

During the movie Dr. Stewart made a comment to Joyce, Andy and Turtle that DARYL was conceived in a test-tube and that only his brain is a computer while the rest of him is human. Also while conception is possible in a "testtube" DARYL still would need a surrogate mother in order for him grow into an infant. Also was Dr Stewart the sperm doner? That would make him a cyborg not a robot. However, my problem with this is that this would mean that his human brain would have had to been surgically removed after birth and a computerized brain put in its place. His computer brain size would have to be extremely small to be placed in an infants skull. Also as DARYL grew from an infant to a pre-adolescent child his computer brain would have to had been changed to a accommodate his growing skull. Unless of course the scientist working on this government project waited until DARYL became a pre-adolescent child before removing his human brain and replacing it with a computer brain. I enjoyed this movie but it lacked an explanation as to when and how his computer brain was placed in his skull.

There are tons of Spielberg fans out there that remain loyal to him even after his long list of recent trash flicks. Amongst them was 'AI.' 'D.A.R.Y.L.' proves to be one of those movies that shows that the eighties might have actually had more thought process than today. In this do not trust the government movie, Barret Oliver plays a young boy who actually is a robot. The military, who couldn't figure out why they wanted little children robots in the first place, decide to scrap Daryl. Daryl. however, has been foster cared and has no memory of his past. While Barret Oliver's Daryl can't approach the level of success of Peter Billingsley in 'The Dirt Bike Kid.' He manages to play his role with a sympathy that Spielberg just can't get out of people who follow his storyboards. For all those who think that I just utterly hate Spielberg, I do rate 'A.I.' slightly ahead of the tv program 'Small Wonder. '