That's how the censors eyes were, I gather

Rating: 7/10 (6 December 1999)

I happened to enjoy this film, probably because I saw it before many critics put it down. I'm a Stanley Kubrick fan, but I know when he doesn't hit his mark. He hits it here, but not dead on like, say, FULL METAL JACKET or A CLOCKWORK ORANGE.
At first you wonder where this film is going. It doesn't get moving until Tom Cruise takes a walk out of the house. I felt like I was right with Cruise in the New York City set in London (what was all that about?) and though critics snuffed his performance, I thought it was more than "decent", though Nicole Kidman had more to work with, since she had more emotions.

The thing I didn't like were the crowds around the "exhibitions" going on in an underground society Cruise falls into. They were digitally added because Warner Bros. didn't have the guts to go with an NC-17 the MPAA had the nerve of giving this film with the uncensored "watchers". This completely ruins Kubrick's art. It also makes the so-called "inappropriate" imagery more distasteful and disturbing than it actually is.
There are parts in this movie that come out of leftfield (though most of them, I think, describe certain sexual opportunities and erotic fantasies) and that just adds onto the length of this long film. It does make the movie more interesting and unpredictable, but at the same time they seem unnecessary.
This film has been helmed as a disappointment. Maybe it is, in Kubrick standards. Maybe this isn't the cut he intended before his untimely death. But I can actually watch and enjoy this one again and again compared to, say, THE SHINING.