I liked the movie, but it had the same problem that I find a few different SS movies have. It seems to me like the movie climaxes about 20-30 minutes before it’s over. It’s like the whole movie builds up to a climax and then it climaxes and … it’s not ending? Like when he finally gets to the point that the psychic girl (I can’t remember the terms, I saw it in the theater) saw when he “kills” that guy. The whole movie built up to that moment and then just kept lagging along.
Same thing happened with “A.I.” - Haley Joel Osment goes to the bottom of the water and I thought, “a little depressing, but a nice end.” But then … more? 20 more minutes? I stopped caring, I guess.
Yeah, but with the number of cars screaming up and down those skyscrapers, you’d have to assume that the Superbowl was being held on the roof. Or did everyone just decide to take a spin down to the lobby at once? Don’t even try to paper over the goofiness; I can spot an attempt at a Playstation 2 tie-in when I see one. A good idea? Sure, assuming you don’t mind your future car smelling like vomit.
And “futurist consultants,” my (bouncing) eye. That must have been a sweet paycheck. “Oh yes, Mr. Spielberg, you’ll be driving up the side of the Chrysler Building within thirty years. And each car will have its own holographic smellovision. That’ll be fifty thousand dollars.”
Yeah, I’ll expect to see vertical parking about the same time as I get that personal jet pack from the Popular Mechanics. They should have just had his car fold up into a tiny briefcase.
Dooku, this was exactly my problem with the movie. It just didn’t make any sense at all to me. Also, whatever happened to trial by jury? Apparently, in the future, if I even THINK of doing something bad, I’m locked up, no questions asked. Don’t I get to defend myself? Don’t I get to stand in front of a judge?
Ah, but you see, thinking about that action and actually intending to act upon it are two very different things. I mean, they got you based on whether you were going to kill in the heat of passion or whether it was a planned murder.
The security thing bugged me as well. It was enough to draw me back into the real world and go “huh?!”, therefore lessening the whole movie experience.
I also didn’t get how on earth John Anderton killing that guy was ‘planned’. It’s not like he had any clue of what was happening around him.
I didn’t like the ending because Speilberg is a coward. He had a fantasitic premise that raised all sorts of deep questions about human motivation and causality. We’ve seen this questions asked before in art, but almost always they are answered with cheap “I can choose/change my destiny: I rule!” answers. He had a chance for something new. He squandered it. Entirely. I almost expected to see some evil Nazi come out of nowhere to get shot.
The philosophical questions the film asked were safe. You can change the future that is predicted if you know about it. What would have made a very powerful statement would have been a character to KNOW his future, and NOT avoid it. For instance: Max’s character KNOW that he has been seen killing Cruise, know that he can change his destiny if wants, and yet still choose not to change it, killing Cruise anyway to protect the sanctity of his program even if it ruins him personally. Killing himself is such an incredibly ridiculous bad-guy cliche that it almost made me gag.
There were plenty of other stupid moves. For instance, the “DON’T take that bandage off early or you’ll go blind!!!” build-up. What happened? He takes it off early. He doesn’t go blind. No explanation is given. And of course the stupid eyeball code being activated, which was telegraphed and repeated far too obviously (could have been okay if it was at least not telegraphed so repeatedly and pointedly).
—I also didn’t get how on earth John Anderton killing that guy was ‘planned’. It’s not like he had any clue of what was happening around him.—
It WAS planned. It just wasn’t planned by Anderton. It was a frame-up. THAT twist was pretty cool, because it’s something we should be able to figure out as soon as we realize that it’s going to be a crime of passion.
That ending was awful damn weak. The film should have just stopped with the comatose Cruise being put into storage and the keeper saying “They say you dream of your future” or some such thing.
Nice, ironic ending. But nope. Gotta keep going. It doesn’t really matter wether the last 20 minutes are supposed to be straight story or just a fantasy; either way, it sinks the movie and ultimately makes one annoyed.
Anderton: Please, remove my eyeballs, even though you hate me and are seeking revenge!
Loony doctor(who we can barely understand): Well, I do hate you, and deeply desire revenge. So, here is a moldy sandwich! And here also are your old eyeballs for no reason!
Later, at DOOR LOCKED BY AMAZING TECHNOLOGY
Anderton: Ha! Good thing I have my eyeballs with me!
Anderton: Whoops! I dropped my own eyeballs! Oh no! There they go down that ramp! Look out for the grate!
Anderton: Got one! Whew! It sure is gooey, but luckily this AMAZING TECHNOLOGY isn’t fazed by my slimy eyeball dripping eyeball fluid everywhere.
Anderton: Now just remember that I still have my eyeball stashed somewhere in my pocket, everyone!
Later…
Some guy: M’am, I know losing your ex-husband to pretty much the equivalent of death is hard. To help you remember him… HERE IS HIS EYEBALL.
*Not much later[/L]
M’am: How did I get in to this top-secret prison, you ask, you crippled yokel? Well, I USED HIS EYEBALL!!! Hey… aren’t you that guy from O’ Brother Where Art Thou?
Audience: I wish our eyeballs could have been removed for the last third of that dreck!
And don’t forget that when she broke into the prison, she somehow had BOTH eyeballs, having had the clairvoyance to go back and retrieve the other one from that grate, I guess…
Something else I just thought of that bugged me about this movie…
If the technology used to scan everyone’s eyes is so advanced, it can detect the scar tissue if only the retina is changed in a person, how can it not tell that it’s a completely different eyeball and detect all the scar tissue there?
IANAD (doctor), but I would think the scarring left behind after an eye transplant would be behind/outside the eye itself, and therefore not necessarily detectable by a laser shining in from the front.
Not that I wish to defend the film’s technological savvy in general, because it clearly has some problems; I am just unsure that’s one of them.
I must preface this post by saying I was rather drunk when I saw this movie in the theater.
OK, that said, I bawled through most of it. I mean, sobbing, choking, to the point where I almost threw up in my husband’s lap.
The whole thing with his son getting kidnapped, then when he find the guy and all of the pictures… and his description of putting the little boy in the drum
freaked me out.
I was upset for about a week. I couldn’t even enjoy the movie for what it was.
Crappy???
it was the best film of the year! The plot was intelligent, the action was awesome, Cruise, Farrel and Morton were great, script was amazing and the directing was superb. It was the only movie of the year worth four stars for me. I loved the whole “echo” idea and the mind boggling idea of preventing murder before it happens adn all the impliactions it brings with it…gow atch ti again maybe it will grow on you.
Obviously by having Death-wish Boy wait in an apartment opposite the only old-fashioned, static bulletin board in the world: every single other one was a constantly shifting hologram deal.
Kind of like Tom Cruise managing to locate a factory making the absolute last old-style drivable car, since all the others are autopiloted magnetic wallcrawlers.
Anderton doesn’t find out about the doc’s past until they’re somewhere mid-operation.
(Although I agree that it’s odd that they have the doctor going on about how Anderton ruined his life and then there’s no payback…unless you count that moldy sandwich with a spoilt milk chaser.)
