Only a minority of the audience seemed to enjoy this one

Rating: 4/10 (10 October 2002)

Some effort WAS made to do a good sci-fi movie, despite the disappointing result. A big part of the problem has to do with the fact that Spielberg can't seem to make an honest to god sci-fi movie (I haven't been able to bring myself to see A.I., so I'll reserve judgement on that one, but I have my suspicions...., and Close Encounters isn't my sci-fi cup of tea for sure). The characters can't be motivated primarily by fear, nor do any of the issues of political infighting from Dick's story emerge strongly, but we do have a dead kid. That's Spielberg's answer to everything: throw in dead kids. Well, it's been working for him for a long time (from "Jaws" to "Shindler's List") so I guess he'll keep doing it until people stop pulling on their own heartstrings so hard.
Yes, that's this movie's excuse for a plot motivation (Dick's story had a political motive behind the murder in the majority report). Instead of being good science fiction, it just becomes another dumb shoot 'em up movie. It has great special effects, like all these 100+ million dollar movies do, but that's getting to be kind of standard-issue these days. This movie needed a compelling story to make the effects and this vision of the future seem special, and it didn't have one: all it got was this dead kid. Over and over again, Tom Cruise mourning and stalking around his apartment because of a dead kid. And of course it turned out that Max Von Sydow was behind it -- anybody who's seen any of these movies will expect that Sydow or Christopher Lee or Ernest Borgnine or whoever it is will end up being the bad guy.
No wonder when I saw it at a theatre in Berkeley CA I saw (and heard) at least five of the fifty or so people in the audience sleeping. In the middle of the afternoon. Yes, this film is siesta time.
Of course, it's not all bad. But it's got enough good stuff (good ideas from Dick's story, good actors like Tim Blake Nelson and Colin Farrell and, come to mention it, Tom Cruise) to make the pretentious, obvious film that emerges seem even worse because of it.
Is it a coincidence that Spielberg's now working with Tom Cruise, the last male lead in Stanley Kubrick's last film? I was amazed to discover that after Stanley Kubrick died, Spielberg was suddenly his best friend and wanted to make the movie he COULD HAVE made with Kubrick 7 years ago instead of "Jurassic Park 2". Of course, I don't really blame Spielberg for not wanting to direct a movie under Kubrick's production -- nobody really knows what that would have been like. But now he's making Kubrick's movies and working with the last actors he worked with. It's like some kind of sick hero identification, or midlife crisis or something, and somebody who cares about Spielberg should talk to him and tell him to make his own movies -- if he has any. It seems like his whole career he's been in the shadow of others (Jack Arnold, and now Kubrick).
Also, I'm getting a bit tired of all these movies going for the same urban/gothic/exotic look that Bladerunner established in the 80s. This film is one of the poorer ones to try so far -- the only one I've seen that does it with any success is the mid-90s "Dark City." I think sci-fi fans are getting a little sick of seeing this look over and over again -- I mean, enough with the cyberpunk hair cuts and fancy holographic photo equipment, if I wanna see it I'll take out my DVD of Bladerunner. I'd rather just keep watching one good movie than a bunch of imitations.