Surprisingly Good

Rating: 9/10 (31 January 2014)

I say surprising because it has been a while since I have seen any decent or otherwise unique sci-fi films. So many of the modern ones have a tendency to either be dumbed down to hell to cater to a wider audience or get so convoluted and tangled up trying to be clever that they simply become unwatchable messes (aka: The Cloud Atlas Effect).
I went into this film thinking it would be bad. Generally when you cast A list celebrities in sci-fi it tends to have that effect on a film. I rewatched War of the Worlds recently and was amazed at how silly the whole thing was and partly that was down to Tom Cruise.
Thankfully that does not happen here. Besides from this film seeming like a little bit of an over the top male fantasy at times and giving the female characters very little depth or independence it is good nonetheless. Tom Cruise himself doesn't really lend much to the character and he feels kind of weak but as it turns out... that is sort of the point all along and actually fits in with the plot.
It didn't exactly feel like anything special at first but it threw out a good few twists that I actually did not see coming for once. I know this is sounding negative but that is only because I am surprised to find that the film was ultimately pretty good.