I just bought the score for Arificial Intelligence and although I think John W. has made a tremendous effort to write this music, and it is very intelligent as a whole, I have some notes to make. First of all, there is some "noise" and inapropriate enorchestration to some cues. I think that this is a mistake that John Williams often makes. Instead of writing a deeply personal and continuous, coherent music, sometimes he prefers to just follow the action of the film, spoiling the substance of a track. This is some times irritating to listen, when, he tries to make a great atmosphere and suddenly, he puts an irritating combination o brass in order to satisfy the action. Although I am a fan of his I think that this tactics is a bit catastrophic fot the album. Secondly, I think that the songs of the album are a bit too cheery and "Celine Dion" like(That's not necessarily bad).
Third, I understand that he repeats many times the two basic motifs of the album inside all the tracks. He also did that to all his films but in this album it is more obvious.
Besides these, I think that the album has some greatly intelligent and deeply motional themes that show his intelligence and his conflict that he passed through in order to create it. It is very good as a whole, but not that good as Angela's Ashes or Schindler's List. Of course, I have heard it only 3 times, so, if the soundtrack "grows" on me, I will notify you:))
Cheers
iCoN