Conceptually interesting, but we’ve seen it done better in other movies and even tv shows at this point.
Yes, I certainly can’t deny that the acting and visuals are brilliant.
Also, the action scenes and worldbuilding are magnificent.
Can you tell it was made in the early 2000’s? Absolutely, the cyberpunk look is ever so present in a lot of scenes, but that’s not bothersome. In fact, I think it’s awesome.
Furthermore, this story goes in directions you don’t expect.
It takes a while for the real adventure part to kick in, and only then you’ll realize that the first act was just a lot of character development.

This film fails on a point where Spielberg hardly ever failed: tone.
As you probably know, this film was originally intended to be directed by Stanley Kubrick.
His dark touch is felt, and it really doesn’t mix with Spielberg’s whimsical style at all.
For example, do PG-13 Ted and an Einstein cartoon played by Robin Williams feel as if they belong in the same movie as where a mother leaves her own kid behind in the forest, and cries her eyes out for doing that?
Unfortunately, they don’t, which results in bizarre tonal shifts throughout the film.

Moreover, I found the choice to have the AI act like our stereotypical imagination of robots a mistake, as it makes it harder to connect to the characters, or understand certain choices of human characters in the first act.
Finally, certain scenes were, in the larger scope of the story, unnecessary (e.g. Brendan Gleeson’s circus show). Removing those scenes would’ve sped up the pacing and shortened the runtime, something this film needed.

5/10