I like it. I don't like it.
Spoilers (and some shouting) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I like it: it's an incredibly cool movie as long as it focuses on the failures of it's allegedly utopian future. The movie is good just as long as it focuses on betrayal, doubt, suspicion, and punishment. I don't like it: the hero is filmed like an anti-hero but neither the plot nor his character offer any of the seedy inclinations or moral vulnerabilities that characterize a decent anti-hero. (The drug habit is excused by his crippling grief; and the drug itself is apparently sufficiently benign that he can use it as his convenience - it has no effect on his character or his performance.) The ex-wife who saves the day isn't set up for her role at all. The bad guy conveniently abandons the chillingly rational logic for his actions just in time to provide us with a happy ending. What the hell kind of dystopian vision provides the audience with a feel-good ending where everyone lives happily ever after? Finally: the eyeballs. John Anderton gets a back-alley eyeball transplant so that the ubiquitous public retinal scanners won't identify him. But then he KEEPS HIS OWN EYEBALLS SO THAT HE CAN SNEAK INTO POLICE HEADQUARTERS! WTF? He's a fugitive from the police who mustn't be identified, so he has his eyeballs replaced. But then he keeps his old eyeballs so that he can use his identity as a cop to get back into headquarters. Isn't it possible that telling the police security system who he actually is might just, I dunno, SET OFF THE DAMN ALARM?!? Mr. Spielberg, don't you suppose that if a cop goes bad, the police security system would be coded to raise a red flag should that same cop be ID'd anywhere on the premises? Especially sense the whole damn force is actively looking for him at the time? If I were a wanted felon, would I put on a mask and then walk into police headquarters and offer them my real-life driver's license for an ID? No, I would not. What's even better, the ex-wife pulls the same trick with the same eyeball AFTER ANDERTON IS ALREADY IN PRISON!!!!!!!!!! IN PRISON!!!!!!!! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH! This is what might have made it a good movie: Anderton finds a cop who's on vacation or sick leave or something, and Anderton steals *his* eyeballs. Anderton, who turns out to be squeaky clean and innocent all along with respect to the alleged precrime, defiles himself sufficiently while trying to prove it that it makes a grim ending both satisfying and morally logical. Marvin Long Austin, Texas There ain't no Devil; there's just God when he's drunk. -- Tom Waits
