A 2.5 hour thrill ride

Rating: Null/10 (30 September 1999)

If you haven't seen the film yet don't read on. On the whole I think it is a film for men and Kubrick's most intense since Clock Work Orange.
Why the male viewer? Well all the women are neatly arranged as "Wife" "Mother" "Hooker" "Junkie" "Cafe Waitress" and in the orgy scene "robot".
This is how Kubrick must have seen women.
To a Kubrick fan, the movie is packed with his style. Every few seconds I was thinking "Oh, that's the lighting from Barry Lindon" or "That's the slow dissolve from The Shining" which incidentally was not intrusive at all into the enjoyment of the film. The couple in the movie have been married for 9 years and so the scene where Nicole Kidman has been smoking pot and goes off into a badly written rant about the Navy guy did not ring true at all. The other poor scene is the one where Cruise is in the costume shop and the owner's daughter is caught with 2 men doing something or other - this scene was as bad as I have seen in any movie and Kubrick should be ashamed of it. It stinks of "better put a laugh in here somewhere". And its Xenophobic - why do movies teach us absolutely nothing about Oriental people? Vietnam perhaps.
The movie is of course a gigantic tease. There are the 2 predatory women in the 1st party scene before Cruise leaves. What were they going to do with him? The ritual orgy goes on just long enough so that we can see what's going on but don't stop to think about it for too long... and realise that if Bill Gates, Kofi Annan and The Pope really wanted to bang supermodels they wouldn't want a mask to get in the way of the fellatio. Here we are teased again. "Undress" Cruise is told, thereby mocking the Doctor's phrase, and for a moment America's #1 star is potentially about to be buggered by the World's most influential man in a mask.
But then no.
Any film maker could so easily have fallen down making this scene but the orgy is wonderful. The way that the numatic young women glide one guest each down the corridor at the same pace reminded me of a theme park ride. A lot of ideas borrowed from other movies here. (Wicker Man, Logan's Run, and I would not be surprised if Kubrick had seen Dr Who & the Robots of Death - it is very similar). A special treat for me came during the Jazz Club scene. "Hey, the layout of this NY club is very similar to Madame Jo Jo's in London" I thought and then a split second later "It IS Madame Jo Jo's!". Yes Tom Cruise sat at the table where I groped a young ladies boobs only a few months ago.
The second half of the film becomes a sort of X-files. The message at the gate was SO similar to e-mails you get when you are on the wrong side of someone you have never met.
Kubrick stitched himself up a bit with the music. Because a plot point involves music we are aware of it during the orgy. And so when it is used again to denote menace it is rather obvious.
Kubrick obviously made the film to be a dream rather than reality. The orgy is very clearly a metaphor for the Internet. In the film, masks are used to create anonymity. "What is the password?" Cruise is asked 3 times. So the film is a great success and if Kubrick had known he was dying then he has made the best work he possibly could. It tells us about film, Kubrick himself, a little about current human nature, and gives me at least, a 2.5 hour thrill.