Worth a look, but fails to go for the jugular.

Rating: 6/10 (3 January 2004)

A reasonably intelligent psychological examination of the nature of love, lust and life in general. Experienced movie goers get clued in to the kind of film we're watching right from the opening when Cruise cruises around a deserted New York. In some ways this was probably a mistake since, although a lot of what happens seems to make no sequential sense, we already know to distrust what we see. This detracts from the emotional involvement required to get the maximum impact. I personally didn't even believe that Sophia was remotely real and was quite surprised to discover that she did, in fact, exist.
Stories of this nature are more satisfyingly terrifying when the ultimate basis of the main character's experience is psychological. Unwilling to go all the way, the makers of this movie draw the tooth of insanity by creating a pseudo-science fiction explanation for all that has gone before. As is frequently the case when people not fully versed in the genre attempt science fiction, this story has a gaping logical hole in it, which need be plugged only with a single line of explanatory dialogue which was not forthcoming. We are all familiar with the concept of cryogenic freezing of a corpse after death, with the idea of being revived in the distant future when the battle against death itself has been won by our descendants. But this film takes the idea one step further - that you can spend your "death" living out a fantasy - a "Lucid Dream". What they completely fail to explain is how exactly a dead person, a corpse with a dead brain, which is being deep frozen in order to cease all activity and the changes wrought by time to enable revival centuries hence; how such a dead body, then, is supposed to *experience* the said Lucid Dream. Such an ability represents a victory against death even better than physical revival would be. You wouldn't even wait to die in order to experience a perfect life from whatever moment you wish, you'd pay large amounts of money to experience such a thing without dying. So why bother with the antiquated idea of cryogenic freezing of the corpse after death (necessitating Aames to have undertaken a suicide that was impossible to believe in, knowing the character) when he could simply have decided to get frozen and live a better life?
Tom Cruise is very good as the man who sees a different kind of life possible through the sight and brief encounter with Sophia, and later excellent as a man dealing with the solitary life of a disfigured man. However, Penélope Cruz is considerably less adept at displaying exactly what it is supposed to be that Cruise is falling in love with, although this is really down to her part being underwritten.
To the user whose comment asked for a response to his theory that the whole thing was an examination of David Aames fear and rejection of his own love for Julie (Cameron Diaz's character), I'm afraid that user has been blinded by the fact that the woman is played by Cameron Diaz. There is absolutely nothing in the film or in her performance to suggest that she is anything but the villainess of the piece, the ultimately suicidal, violently obsessive stalker that she is intended to be. Diaz plays the part very well and courageously, and any attempt to see her character as being any better than she is supposed to be is basically a detrimental opinion of her performance.