Three by Three

Three things I liked about Gattaca.

• The concept and execution of a near-future society in which your genetic code serves as the basis for a new class system. It's a neat concept, and a very believable one. The scene in the beginning, with the nurse taking the just-born baby's blood and dispassionately reciting its chances of contracting major diseases was chilling.
• Its depiction of such a society as a somewhat sterile place. It makes sense to me that in a society where so much is predestined, much of the drama that makes the human race interesting would be leached away.
• The murder mystery, which is nicely woven into the larger story, and which reminded me of Asimov.

Three things I did not like about Gattaca.

• That the lead detective turns out to be Vincent's brother. Contrived and didn't add much.
• While the idea of a non-genetically ideal person stealing a genetically gifted's identity is neat, the execution pushed credibility to the breaking point. He had his legs cut off to gain 4 inches? How does that even work? And the daily scrubbing of the skin and hair to minimize biological evidence seemed silly - no amount of scrubbing is going to prevent you from dropping hairs and skin cells, is it?
• The Jude Law character in general - I found the notion that a genetically gifted person would become a useless part of society just because he was in a wheelchair hard to swallow. And the suicide at the end just didn't land. I didn't buy it, or care.

Until Whenever