I saw it yesterday, and while it wasn’t a bad movie, it certainly didn’t impress me too much.
Sci-Fi is often about ethics. This movie was almost about ethics. It nearly touched some ethical issues. But ultimately it was about the abuse of a system rather than the ethics behind that system in the first place.
This movie could have been an exploration of slavery, a look at justice, and an examination of what sacrifices we are willing to make in order to be safe. Instead it was a fairly straightforward detective story. Yeah, it was entertaining, but it really missed out on a lot of oppertunities to become more than a collection of car chases, interesting (but pretty unworkable…what if you sneeze while you are using the computer?) technology and two bit cheap thrill (and very very talky) plot twists.
I thought it was really good- I can normally guess stuff pretty well, but a few plot twists really surprised me. However, the legalistics bothered me. Also, the paradoxes bothered me too.
Damn good movie. The only problem I had was the gross stuff that was seemingly thrown in for no reason- i.e., the rotting sandwich/spoiled milk gag, or the gratuitously bloody eyeball. But that was just me.
Sigh…the hamsters ate my original, brilliant reply so everybody’ll have to settle for the scaled-down, somewhat less-than-brilliant summary of my remarks.
I enjoyed the movie immensely. Sure, there were problems (trite free will vs. fate philosophizing, worn out film noir plotting and an overly long final act) but the strengths far outweigh the movie’s weaknesses. The direction, cinematography, production design and acting were all superb (Samantha Morton was paticularly impressive).
The vision of a futuristic police state with limited individual privacy and freedom is disturbingly plausible given the current political climate. The invasive, targetted advertising is a logical extension of today’s internet pop-up ads.
Although it could have been shortened with no ill effect on the overall movie, I personally loved the eye surgery scene. I admire Spielberg for including such a darkly absurdist scene that was brimming over with references to such SF movie classics as Brazil, Bladerunner (another Philip K. Dick adaptation) and A Clockwork Orange.
I think this is Spielberg’s best science fiction movie in decades and I’ll definitely be seeing this again in the theatre.
I liked the film. As noted by many the ending fizzled out a little (though check out the spoiler thread for an intriguing interpretation by Zuma) but not so much as to spoil the entire film.
I think the most brilliant part of the movie was in the middle with 4 extraordinary sequences more or less one after the other, the garden sequence with the inventor, the eye surgery, the mechanical spiders and the mall chase with Agatha.Spielberg at his witty and manipulative best.
Some very vivid images of future technologies as well.
Overall a very satisfying film. I am not yet sure whether it ranks up there as a masterpiece.