Not as good as you might have heard

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2005)

OK, it has some interesting ideas about a future society. The story is actually quite good, although there is something odd about the way it's very predictable, then there's a twist, after which you immediately know what the next surprise will be. Until the next twist that is.
There are a few problems though. Both the action sequences and the (somewhat slapstick) comedy seem out of place in a movie like this. It's like a putting a Blues Brothers style car chase in Blade Runner. The ending too doesn't really fit with the rest of the film.
And of course there's Tom Cruise, who, as usual, comes across as so unsympathetic it's hard to care what happens to him. And this has nothing to do with recent real life events, mind you. I didn't see Cradle Robbing Religious Lunatic Cruise on the screen, just Unpleasant Police Junkie Anderton. He can act, sure, but whether he plays a macho fighter pilot, a whining doctor or a Great White Hope Samurai, I just can't seem to root for the guy. Luckily there are some people around him to care about, unlike Tom's awful children in this years War of the Worlds.