MINORITY REPORT
Released: June 21, 2002
Steven Spielberg, fresh from tampering with his 1982 classic "ET" for its 20th anniversary re-release, redeems himself after the "ET" fiasco and 2001's painfully hard to watch "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" clunker. While Spielberg hasn't quite hit the heights he did in "Saving Private Ryan" or "Schinder's List", he does take a few risks and it all results in an entertaining movie. Having said that, "Minority Report" is not a light movie. It DOES require a certain amount of intelligence on the part of the viewer. Essentially this is a traditional "who dunnit" yarn set in the future and rejigged to be a "who's gonna do it". Does it work? Yes, for the most part, yes... Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, Minority Report is about a cop (Tom Cruise) working in a division of the police department that arrests killers before they commit the crimes courtesy of some future viewing technology. Cruise's character has the tables turned on him when he is accused of a future crime and must find out what brought it about and stop it before it can happen. It's a race against time as the clock ticks down to the moment when the murder was predicted to happen. But is the future locked in? Can't we make choices and change the future as we go? Of course we can, and that is what is analysed in "Minority Report". Also starring with Cruise are Colin Farrell (as the cop assigned to monitor the "precrime" unit), and Max von Sydow (as the man who helped create the system), Tim Blake Nelson, Arye Gross (of Ellen Degeneres' first TV sitcom "Ellen" and 1993's "Hexed"), Mike Binder, Peter Stormare (who appears in two other flicks within a month - "Bad Company" and "Windtalkers") and Samantha Morton as one of the three "pre cogs" who lie in water tanks having their thoughts channelled into the Pre Crime computers. Spielberg throws in some intersting ideas, including the fact the future resembles both futuristic and current day "looks". The reason is that it's doubtful they'd demolish old houses just to erect a modern style, especially when historical foundations would cry foul if they tried. I also like the "spiders" that can track people by scanning their eyes. It is a standard "who dunnit" format with a twist but it's told in a highly entertaining way. Produced by "Speed" director Jan de Bont...
145 Minutes
20th Century Fox/DreamWorks