I actually liked this quite a bit. Cruises best film in recent years, and a tight and interesting idea from the hands of Spielberg. *spoilers* I do enjoy the idea with tampering, planting information that balloons at a later time, and I enjoyed how hard Cruise's character had to work to find the divergent view from the three minds.* In the scheme of things, the "action" is far more motivated, feels relevant to the situation and envirenment, and actually serves to create an investment in the hero. Perhaps too much investment? I found the len's orientation on Cruise to be saturated, and the "mourning" scenes to be too blunt (and outright silly) compared to the smarter storyline. I wasn't that invested in Cruise's survival, and found Morton to be more the heroine. An odd mix of celebrity and ingenuity, its still far better than most of the sci-fi that has come out since then.

B+

No, no, the cars, the highway system, the fact that we'll still be dealing with the flu, touch screens, the fact that buildings will remain the same, as they have for centuries, the clothes, eye IDs, the advertising aimed at individuals, etc.

Just brilliant.

Doesn't measure up to Spielberg's early classics, but it's certainly his best film in the last ten years. The effects are outstanding without being too flashy or overexposed. The unique look of the film certainly adds to its noirish qualities. Cruise is terrific and I thought Colin Farrell nearly matched him. The ending does feel off, but I'll chalk that down to my own interpretation of it being a dream. It's a bit long, but the story is engrossing and it's very exciting to watch. One of the best sci-fi flicks from this new millennium.

An A movie up until its infamous ending Spielburg shows skilled hands in transfering one of Phillip K Dicks more accessable novels to the big screen without going Total Recall crazy on us.

The technology porn level is high but the central story is well grounded as Tom Cruise once again reminds us that he's super fit and agile while we curse that fact that we'll all be broken wrecks by the time we hit 40.

Yup its a great movie.............................until the ending, may Frank Capra haunt Spielburgs dreams, in fact let somebody slap a court order on Steven that he shouldn't be allowed near the final scenes of his movies without supervision.

B

Heh, I keep forgetting that everyone else thinks this is a freaking brilliant movie. Must've been all the post-WOTW bitching about Spielberg's obsession with duex ex machinas that threw me off.

But yes, truly brilliant filmmaking.

****/****

And I didn't read the rest of the thread, but did anyone else like how Spielberg let humor into the movie through plausible slapstick moments throughout? John eating the moldy sandwich, the shots of everyone else in the complex as their eyes were scanned, John's eyeball rolling off. It's kinda like he thought of all this "what if?" stuff about the situations (What do you think it's like for the family that's about to have their apartment ripped up by flying policemen?) and put it in there. I love it.

A

Would be right up there for favorite sci-fi/dystopia and Spielberg films, recently made a top 100 list and this was about #97. Not perfect, but nearly.

B+


It is a superb dystopian sci-fi flick runited by its ending. I mean, seriously, how could Spielberg screw up the film this badly at the end? If it had ended with Tom Cruise arrested and "put to sleep", then it would have been a near-masterpiece, but the whole happy ending pretty much destroyed its chances at becoming an eternal milestone of the genre. What remains is a very entertaining and innovative sci-fi actioner that should have been nominated and should have even won the Best Visual Effects award at the Oscars in its year. The highway scenes are simply awesome and the ending twist is very well done. Now if it had been just ten minutes shorter...!

watching this from the perspective of it's kind of an old movie now (eight years!), I really think this stands among some of the most impressive work Spielberg has done. Though certainly nowhere near his best film, it's a movie so different in tone/style/ambiance than just about everything else he has made, yet he handled it with as much grace and confidence as he handled, say, Jurassic Park. The visuals still look terrific, the story pieces together brilliantly, and Cruise/Farrell both offer some of their best work as actors. And as far as a vision of the future is concerned, it still seems like a pretty accurate guess (hopefully not the pre-crime stuff, but just about everything else).

A

and as Jon mentioned a few posts up, all the "Spielberg touches" add so much to the experience; it's those little moments that take an entertaining experience and make it fulfilling and memorable.

May be the best film of the last decade and one of the three best dystopian movies ever. The futuristic vision is simply stunning, it's just as groundbreaking as 2001 and Blade Runner.

A+

It's both brilliant and absolutely underwhelming and silly all at the same time. C

Perceptive review - - I agree.