A.I. may not have entirely worked but it was still ambitious and consumate filmmaking. And his best films have much better than simple dialogue.
Oh his best films have been very good, such as Jaws as was noted above. But AI was a colossal stinker. An indecipherable script which rambled from scene to scene never coming close to a coherent plot. Incredibly boring and it went on forever. There were at least three points where it could have ended and I did think it was over, but no, it kept going and going. The production was terrible and in once scene towards the end you could actually see the boom microphone in the frame onscreen. The fact we know that Spielberg is capable of incredible film making is what made this mess all the more puzzling.
AI failed miserably in the story telling department. Speilberg didn't seem to know what words were needed to project the ideas he wanted to beam into our minds via the dialog. AI as a film or story idea REQUIRED this more literary projection to work. He did not have our fears and preconceptions to manipulate as he had so deftly done in earlier films. Reducing complex ideas to dialog we can all understand is a talent in and of itself, no less than the talent Speilberg demonstrated in “Jaws”. Speilbergs great talent is very deceptive. The “simple” dialog, scenes, editing etc of his early films has convinced waaaay to many aggressive, intelligent but ultimately un talented people that THEY could be story tellers too. I think Speilberg, hands down, the most imitated Director in film history. Few people walked away from a Jimi Hendrix show saying “I can do that too!”. A LOT of people have walked away from a B.B. King show thinking “I can do that too”! They were of course wrong. Speilberg knew what he wanted to do in AI but he failed to pass that on to us.