Terrible!

Rating: Null/10 (18 January 2003)

I won't waste time on plot holes (since the screenwriter didn't). What I will focus on is the sheer shoddiness of the plot.
Why does Spielberg feel that his movies have to have a "goof" edge to them? Attempts at light comedy do not belong in a serious sci fi movie. Putting them in there is only an admission of the inadequacy of the creative team. If the story were well-written and spellbinding enough, there would be no perceived need for light comic entertainment.
And the bigger problem: Spielberg humor isn't funny. See the special agent's jets fry burgers in the diner as they fight! See the spiders crawling around interrupting a hilarious fight with an ethnic couple. After the spiders leave, they get right back to fighting. Oh, those ethnics! Tom Cruise is chased into a Lexus plant, falls into the machinery, and a car is assembled around him! But wait, there's more. See the perfunctory sidekick in what is supposed to be a climactic, powerful scene, cracking wise with the precog. "Those thoughts about my cousin were just thoughts", he says. Oh, my sides!
The movie falls apart because it cannot establish a flow. We shoot from effects sequence to blatant product placement (Aquafina water, The Gap, Lexus, etc) to attempt at comedy to effects sequence. The denoument - where the "real killer" is revealed - is perhaps a surprise to people who have never seen a movie before. There's not even a climactic effects sequence. There are two major sequences, both occur when Cruise is being chased earlier in the film. So the film staggers over the two hour mark, thinking it's the story that attracted us. Wrong ...
I do not understand why people mindlessly praise Spielberg. He's just phoning it in. He and George Lucas are perfect examples of how a person becomes something they weren't before. Lucas now is nothing like his younger self (his younger self would have burned the negatives of "The Phantom Menace"). Spielberg has finally become a copy of a copy of a copy. If I hadn't known he'd been involved, I would never have figured it out. The direction is workmanlike; the effects decidedly unspectacular (they look exactly like computer FX grafted onto live action sequences).
But in the end, the true fault lies with the screenwriter. It's simply a poor script. The only parts that shine are from Dick's original story. The rest is just junk. Avoid at all costs.