The first ten or fifteen minutes are some of the best stuff Spielberg has ever done.
But the movie can't maintain that brilliance. Silly scene after silly scene ensues (Cruise escaping in the newly made car which seems to work without him needing a key or some sort of activation, the weird plant lady, the bizarre doctor and his perverted assistant, the ridiculous Gideon keeper of the inmates, etc, etc) . The cool retro plot is the only thing holding it all together, and even that falls apart once we find out Lamar's plan, which is a gaping plot hole.
How could Lamar have framed Cruise for murder when the murder couldn't have taken place unless Cruise saw the future murder to begin with? How could Lamar know Cruise would find his way to Leo Crowe? The only reason Cruise sets the events in motion is because he saw the prevision, but how could that prevision exist without a catalyst not involving itself? It's a causality loop and makes no sense. And it's obvious Anderton's murder of Crowe was a crime of passion, since he only decides to kill him moments before the actual act occurs (seeing the photo), so why didn't he get a red ball instead of a brown one? I wouldn't have much of a problem with it if the entire plot of the film didn't depend on it. Not to mention the precogs are useless...they never predict murder because the people get arrested first...why don't they predict the arrest? It's made plainly clear later that the precogs are extremely powerful psychics (the scene with Agatha and Anderton at the mall), so obviously they don't just predict murder...they can't see the arrests happening? And why didn't Agatha see the cops finally arresting Anderton and warn him before his house was crawling with his former teammates? Why didn't Anderton's eyes set off the alarms at the police precinct when he snuck back in to kidnap Agatha? Surely they'd have modified his access after he was branded a fugitive. The list goes on and on...
Plus the movie has this incredibly irritating blue filter over it 90% of the time. I've said this before, but I can't stand Janusz Kaminski's lighting...he did a good job on Schindler and Spielberg decided to keep him all the time, which is a mistake. Certain DPs are great for certain films, but not others, much like directors.
Edited by Ambler - 2/15/12 at 2:02pm
