Good Sci-fi and a pretty good film

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2002)

This is a film about seeing things coming. Ironicly, for the last hour or so, I didn't see half of it coming. These twists, however, were not just put in for no reason, when you learned of them, they actually made sense (for once).
Also, for the first time since....maybe Bladerunner, a future world has been shown to me that is pretty much believable. Nothing (except maybe the spiders) seemed to be too far-fetched or out of place. This realistic, futuristic world was only to by (sorry melinda-3) by the advertisements by real companies of the here and now.
The plot, though complicated, is not so complicated as to pull you out of this second world to make you think too much. It is about (as you probably already now) preventing murders before they happen. Based on a short-story by Philip K. Dick (same guy who wrote the book Bladerunner was based on).
The camera work is good, especially when the spiders are searching the floor for John Anderton (Cruise), and camera sweeps across the floor with a top down view, revealing the different people in this futuristic metropolis. Tom Cruise gives his best performance in recent memory and probably ever. The direction is also very good, but we've come to expect that of one of the most famous directors in the past 50 years.
The SFX blew me away. It was not like Star Wars, where pretty much everything that wasn't alive or human was CG. They mixed with real objects, which, also (I'm sorry to go on) added to the overall world that you are being sucked into.
The action scenes were very good, better than Spiderman and on par with that of Star Wars (but of course in a different style).
All in all, an all round decent film, not as good as some sci-fi. But pretty far up there.
8/10