Minority Report (Wide Screen) > Reviews > Cruise + Spielberg = Summer Blockbuster?

Author's product rating:   

Did you enjoy it?	Loved it
Story	Outstanding
Characters / Performances	Good
Special Effects	Outstanding
How does it compare to similar films?	Good

Advantages:	Superbly written with tremondous depth .
Disadvantages:	Failure at the box office .  Over complicated?

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Minority Report Review

Cruise and Spielberg. Those two names alone will make a movie buff’s heart skip a beat and stomach fill with butterflies when the word summer block buster is added to the sentence, and yet in 2002 when the duo released their predicted hit the box office did nothing but fizzle. Spielberg had just come off another huge disappointment with the title of AI, but was still reeling in the success of Saving Private Ryan from 1999. Cruise was still being praised for recent box office credits in both Vanilla Sky and Mission Impossible 2. It seemed unlikely that this movie would prove to be anything but a scorcher, but instead it raked in just $35 million in it opening weekend in the USA and £4 million in the UK, compare this to the $80 million Star Wars Episode 2 gathered this really puts the minor flop into perspective.

Imagine the future. Not too far in the future… just say in the year 2054. How do you imagine the world would work, everything from the Government to the policing system would have changed you say. Well of course, and according to Spielberg’s interpretations the police will be able to punish you for crimes before you actually commit it, and will have methods in which they can see the offence you will commit it beforehand. The cops use three drug abuser’s psychic offspring to harness the capabilities of predicting the future. Now the time has come to see if the system is working 5 years into the program, which runs in just New York, Washington is sending down a team of experts to deem whether the program is sustainable and moral. Throw into this mix the fact that the cop (Tom Cruise) who controls the whole system has just been seen in a premonition murdering someone, which forces himself to go on the run and prove himself innocent, and you get the basic out line of a very intertwined plot.

The casting in my opinion is pretty spot on. I’m a huge Cruise fan so I was delighted with Tom Cruise in the main role, which he fits brilliantly. Collin Farrell takes the other lead role of being the member of the FBI investigating the method of pre-crime. Farrell brings superb depth to the character, and the twist and turns, which take his character to both sides of the audience’s emotional spectrum, certainly are complimented by his style of acting. The film doesn’t have heaps of big names, but it doesn’t need them, and in retrospect it is lucky they didn’t spend millions on a an all star cast, considering their poor revenue.

The musical score in Minority Reports, as most Spielberg movies, relies on brilliant classical orchestras, and even though the “old fashioned” music is not contemporary it compliments the futuristic context perfectly, creating the tense and superficial feeling the film longs for. The musical score is justified by the brilliant directing that you come to expect from the master of film, Steven Spielberg, who takes command of the flick. The great camera angles, and brilliant build up to scenes is here, as is the perfect fast paced action scenes, which are sandwiched by the overall drama. Spielberg, in my opinion is at his best here since the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, and knows exactly want he wants, not only from the film but also from the audience.

The concept of the psychics (“precogs”) is very unusual, and not a stereotypical “US cop” cliché which could have been used to explain how they predicted the future i.e. a super computer. Instead we are treated to three off spring of drug abusers, who because of their junky parents, have nightmares of murder. Clear and horribly real nightmares. It turns out that what they are dreaming is actually happening in real life, in the near future. The US govt. decided to tap into this little talent they had, and put them in a tank in the middle of the police station, with wires in the brain recording their dreams so as they can use their premonitions to prevent crime. This not only appeals to sci-fi fans, but also brings up the issues to do with human rights and morality.

It is hinted throughout the film that what the police are doing with these humans is immoral. The precogs are not being held in their own free will, and are being kept in a state of barely consciousness. The concept that this is not right, and that these people need help to overcome their “nightmares”, is ignored by the police for “the good of the public” and possibly more importantly, the good of Pre-Crime. It paradoxes lots of human right issues in the US, particularly during the time the film was released in 2002, the parallels with illegal US prisoners and unfair treatment of foreign immigrants coats the film with a thick political lining.

The only negative I would have to align with this film with is that for a action adventure movie, looking to fill the summer blockbuster void, it is very complicated and wouldn’t appeal to people who like to only half watch a film. This attribute also repeals young children and people with short attention spans, which obviously would have been a large portion of their audience otherwise. Fear not, the complicated story does not infringe on the enjoyment of the film (ala Matrix Reloaded), but instead means that it is only suitable or desirable for a certain breed of audience.

The film is very dark in place. Scenes such as Cruise’s eye operation are hard to watch, and the gritty appeal of a superficial world reliant on a secret drug abuse, speaks volumes for the political message it is trying to convey. The film shreds the kind of future that other films such as Demolition Man have built with the superficial world being built on goodness and wholesome morals, instead it is exposed to be a system reliant on the smut peddlers and dirty drug abusers, which eventually will lead to it’s downfall. In that sense the film is extremely dark, and like the smell of rotting flesh, instantly recognisable and with the basic human need to gag (even if it is own metaphorically). It is for this inquisitive and honest portrayal of what the future is really going to be like, that the film just clinches 5 stars from me.

From head to toe, this film feels like a big deal. Huge action scenes, doubled up with a great script and plot, mean that watching this is very exhilarating, and feels like a typical summer blockbuster. However, it is also when you switch the TV off, and start thinking about what you have just seen that you realise the film is so much more deeper than what it appears to be on the surface, and that the various levels of depth and meaning in the film can be individually related to be anyone. The film comes together beautifully, and is a perfect example of what can happen when film makers decide to not walk the straight and narrow.

Minority Report is available on DVD (both double disk and single disk), quite cheaply for most DVD retailers, both online and off. The DVD is certificate 12 in the United Kingdom, but 15 in the rest of Europe. It has a running time of 132 minutes (not too long), and was released in 2002.

 

Pictures for the review

Display pictures

Tom Cruise and Colin Farrel in their last meeting.