Toronto

Spielberg's latest is a near-masterpiece, almost sitting right up there with his all time greats like Jurassic Park, the Indiana Jones trilogy and Saving Private Ryan. The story is compelling, the vision of the future believable for the most part, but in some instances a little too far-fetched so as to seem almost alien, and the action sequences (what few there are) are terrifically well done. It clocks in at somewhere around two and a half hours, and in my honest opinion, it does not need to be that long. The first half hour is a little slow (but necessary to set up the premise) and the last half hour is a bit excessive in terms of letting the story get out of control. It is not difficult to follow, but it would have been better with a slightly more simplified plot. It seemed they were trying to cram too much into it. There is one scene about two hours in that would have made a great climax to the film, similar to the final, gut-wrenching scene of "Seven." But the movie continues and from then on, it starts to get a little contrived. My bigger complaint however, is not in the story itself, but in the movie's colour scheme. It seems as if you are watching the entire movie through a glass of skim milk. Everything has a whitish-blue haze to it that can be downright distracting at times. At some points, Spielberg goes so far as to blur certain images, for what effect other than to hurt my eyes, I cannot imagine. Aside from these minor complaints, a fantastic film. Would've been a 10, but loses 1 point for the slightly contrived story and "skim milk" effect.

Note: The review posted on this page is a personal opinion of our reader. We are not responsible for its content.