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• Adaptation Displacement: For some viewers, the film overshadows the Philip K. Dick source story.
• Complete Monster: James "Jimmy" Rethrick, the seemingly friendly CEO of Allcom, hires reverse engineer Michael "Mike" Jennings to create a device to foresee events. Killing those involved after learning the device will inevitably lead to nuclear fallout when they protest, Jimmy only relents from killing Mike after learning he has deactivated the machine. Luring Mike back to Allcom, Jimmy decries Mike as a fool before setting him up to be shot to death by the FBI agents he has manipulated, intending to devastate humanity in a future he alone controls.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Jennings watching a highlight reel of the baseball season he lost while working on the secret project. The team he's distressed about because they lost in the playoffs? The Boston Red Sox, of which Ben Affleck is a big fan of in Real Life. It's also a case of Time Marches On as the Boston Red Sox actually won their first world series in 86 years the year after the film was made.
• Narm: It might have gone better had the referenced scene (in which Jennings states that he believes he can change his future) not been deleted:
  James Rethrick: Still think you can change your fate, Mike? I AM THE FUTURE, MIKE!
  • It appears that this scene was reinstated in the DVD release.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Henry is one of the FBI agents chasing Jennings.
  • Joe Morton was also in another film which dealt with manipulating time to change the future — in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he created Artificial Intelligence, of all things. No fate but what we make indeed.
  • Apparently, Dexter is in the FBI as well.
  • To start the movie, Lily Rush is one of the executives Jennings does a project for.
  • Let's not forget that Batman, Poison Ivy, Two Face, Cyborgs father, and a Man Bat are all in the film.

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