Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

Cissy Évelyne It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

mrnunleygo If you like impressive-looking sci-fi with lots of running around, you might like this. On the other hand, if you like thoughtful, intelligent science fiction, you can safely give this one a pass. With a talented cast, good budget, and a terrific premise by Phil Dick (who also inspired the brilliant Blade Runner and Total Recall), this should have been a fine movie. I don't know whether to blame the director, the writer (adapter), or both. (Each has done things I've liked in the past.) There are lots of troublesome inconsistencies, but I want to keep spoilers to a minimum. I can suspend disbelief and I think I have a fair tolerance for implausible heroics and holes in plots. But in science fiction or in fantasy, realism by default must be grounded in the characters, and I couldn't make myself believe the two leads—one a supposedly brainy weapons scientist, the other a top intelligence official—could possibly be so much stupider than the viewing audience. Neither seems capable of self-reflection or insight into the motives of anyone else. An interrogation scene near the beginning of the movie is a brain-numbing disaster. Vincent D'Onofrio's bullet-headed intelligence officer is portrayed as impervious to critical thought and mindlessly cruel. If he believes the circumstances are as he says slightly later in the film, it's senseless for him to act and talk as he does during the interrogation. (Also, didn't anyone ever teach him about the concept of "misinformation"?) Meanwhile, Gary Sinise's rocket scientist, instead of trying to persuade onlookers by asking obvious logical questions, adopts an initial strategy for escape makes no sense whatsoever (and has no obvious point). Mekhi Phifer, good as always, plays the only role that seems remotely plausible. The film director does achieve the small miracle of making a character played by Madeleine Stowe uninteresting, but at least she is given the chance to ask, halfway through the film, the question every character should have been asking from the beginning: "How can you be sure?" That is the central theme of Dick's message, although it's message few of the characters in this film could have understood.

simondclinch-1 For some reason, this film never got billed in my local cinemas at the time. I only watched it now because I was checking for a Philip K Dick adaptation I hadn't seen and this was the only one remaining for me to see.The plot is wonderfully twisty - no way of guessing the ending either, so I won't spoil that!Plenty of action, although perhaps more could have been done to make the chase sequences more original. Also the score didn't do much for me. Nevertheless, as a sci fi film, it's well worth watching - ranks high in the list of Philip K Dick masterpieces like Bladerunner, Total Recall, Minority Report etc.

Leon Eighties Radford All of the other reviews I read said that this was good. Or at least, OK. I literally had to "skip" through bits as I found it so awful. Gary Sinise's acting is appalling. His "face" acting is laughable. NEVER did I believe that he was his character, with his Lieutenant Dan face on permanently. Vincent D'Onofrio's acting is only slightly better. But his character is so clichéd and ott, it was probably hard for him to add too much to it? ACTUALLY, I can't recall anyone acting well throughout this whole movie. Also, I cannot believe that this was EVER going to be a major release movie!? It looks like, and played like a 1990's straight to video movie. The movie did not draw me in AT ALL. And I didn't care who was an impostor or not. The whole film was dire. And I cannot get the time back that I wasted watching it.

Robert J. Maxwell I watched it mainly because of Philip K. Dick's reputation as an SF writer and because Madeleine Stowe was in it. She's like some kind of gem, maybe black onyx, only capable of bursting into flame. Yet, what a disappointment the movie is.It begins with a complicated voice-over by Gary Sinese, describing a planet covered by a semi-permeable shield, reminding one of Metaluna in "This Island Earth." Except that, somehow, the hostile aliens are getting through and imitating earthlings expertly enough that it's hard to tell the difference.Sinese goes to work one morning, after an enviable bout with the sleepy Stowe, and is taken under arrest as one of the phony aliens. He's taken to the Interrogation Room where he's strapped into a chair, teased and tortured, and forced to watch some kind of Mixmaster device with whirring blades lowered into another suspect's chest, splattering blood and tissue all over, and extracting the beating heart.When Sinese himself is placed on the table and is shrieking, staring up at the Mixmaster, I shut it off.You can keep watching if you like. It might have improved as the story was developed. If so, I missed it. To me, it was more like torture porn than science fiction. Some people get a thrill out of it.