enjoyable but disappointing

Rating: 5/10 (14 April 2013)

I know giving a film a 5/10 is the worst possible move as it automatically earns everyone's hate seeing as the general consensus on IMDb is to give a film a 1 or a 10 with very little scores in between. But I'm going to say that I did find this film enjoyable and thoroughly watchable, but disappointing as it could've been much more.
I love the world that was created, and the tranquil scenes of Earth juxtaposed the gritty action nicely. The acting was solid all round especially from Tom Cruise who gets much more hate than he deserves, he is still one of the best actors around.
So why only give this film an average score? Well, it made some rather disappointing rookie mistakes. Firstly, there were so many holes in the story. I know it's sci-fi and one must suspend their disbelief, but some of the mistakes were just sloppy. I won't elaborate for fear of spoilers but when the story finally does kick off, don't try to think about any of it too hard. This is my major issue with the film.
Also, whilst Cruise's character was well developed, the others (such as Morgan Freeman) were left pretty undeveloped and hence one-dimensional. Freeman pretty much acts as the plot explainer and many of the other characters I simply did not care about as they were given virtually no screen time.
If you like sci-fi action then get some popcorn and watch it for some solid entertainment with friends but don't try too hard to think it through. I left the cinema feeling disappointed at a film which was entertaining but could have been much more.