Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A flawed, but fascinating effort.
I've now seen "A.I." twice, and personally, some parts of Williams' score work better than others. Too many times does the music sound like traditional Williams ("E.T." in particular), as it stands in sharp contrast to the more experimental, haunting works in both the film and soundtrack. The soundtrack is an excellent sampling of the latter experimentation. When I first heard the Ambient "Cybertronics," it cried out as an obvious- but stellar- tribute to Kubrick's use of Khachaturian's "Gayane Ballet Suite" in another sci-fi mind-workout, "2001: A Space Odyssey." "The Moon Rising" is an exciting bit of adventure writing, as is "The Mecha World." "Abandoned in the Woods"- when listened to separately from the film- is more than just traditional Williams, but not nearly as abstract or brilliant as "Hide and Seek," an ode to the visionary musical possibilities sci-fi provides. Most haunting and moving, though, are the latter pieces- "Stored Memories and Monica's Theme," "Where Dreams are Born," and "The Search for the Blue Fairy" all hold the listener spellbound, in particular during the ethereal vocal interludes and powerful piano theme that is the basis of the "Titanic"-esque ballad included on the soundtrack, "For Always." Overall, not perfect, but still a minor masterpiece from Williams and Spielberg.
Rating:  - One of Williams' Best
John Williams' score for Spielberg's misunderstood sci fi masterpiece is as well-orchestrated as the film itself, playing more to the side of subtley rather than Williams at full bore. The soundtrack contains some of his best work, with "replicas" and "Hide And Seek" easily being his most poetic and exciting tracks. "Cybertronics" and "The Moon Rising" are more familiar, yet still evoke the dark and mysterious nature of the film. Laura Fabians' beautiful song "For Always" fits perfectly amidst the strong emotion. And "Stored Memories And Monica's Theme" play on the etheral tunes and emotions while not succumbing to sentementality. While some tracks are reminiscant of Williams' earlier works (Close Encounters, E.T and Hook), it still sits together brilliantly. Another great soundtrack from the master of movie music.
Rating: - Correct order of tracks
I've seen A.I. four times now, and am still astounded by its haunting brilliance. I was also blown away by John Williams' gorgeous, minimalist-influenced score. However, the CD is confusingly ordered as well as including tracks not in the film, and others that were misleadingly named. Here, then is the correct order if you want to burn your own, chronologically accurate, A.I. album. 6) Cybertronics 4) Hide and Seek 2) Abandoned in the Woods 7) The Moon Rising 1) The Mecha World 3) Replicas 11) The Search for The Blue Fairy 8) Stored Memories and Monica's Theme 12) The Reunion 9) Where Dreams Are Born Track 10, which I have left off, is a bit confusing. The first portion of the track is actually just an alternate version of "Abandoned in the Woods," a piece not heard anywhere else but in that earlier scene. Next comes a rather brief passage, jaunty and light, that is actually in the film. It is heard as Joe and David set off for Rouge City. The music which comes next though--the fanfare which plays as they cross the bridge into Rouge City--is replaced by a variation on "The Mecha World" theme. Again, this music is not heard here in the film, although some people at other sites have suggested it could be an alternate cue for this sequence, which sounds possible to me. I have left this track off, but if you want to include it, it would come between tracks 7 & 1. As for the two other tracks not on the list, 5 and 13, they are vocal versions of Monica's theme which are never played in the film, and which I, personally, don't like at all. Also, some of the names needed changing, so I came up with these replacements- 1) Where The Lions Weep/I'm David -- The actual name doesn't accurately describe where this music goes at all. 3) Replicas/Carried by the Current -- "Replicas" only describes the first half, the second half needed a title. 6) Pending -- "Cybertronics" is a misleading title, this music is actually from the scene at the CRYOGENICS facility where Martin is frozen. 8) Ice Planet/Back Home/The Blue Fairy -- I found the original title vague, and it didn't describe the final two thirds of the music. So there you go, as carefully researched as I could make it, having listened to the album extremely closely and watched the movie this last time specifically for the music. Hope this helps other music-lovers out there who were confused by the organization of the album, and didn't want to be blindly skipping around tracks.
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