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Review by Jack Foley |
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DVD SPECIAL FEATURES: Minority Report: From Story To Screen; Deconstructing
Minority Report; The Stunts Of Minority Report; ILM and Minority Report; Final
Report; Minority Report Archives (virtual gallery, storyboard sequences, illustrations
and stills, production notes and biographies).
SCIENCE fiction seems to work best when it takes on darker territory,
exploring the realms of the ‘what if’ scenario and presenting a
believably nightmarish vision of what could be.
Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (especially its director’s cut) is a
prime example, as are the likes of The Matrix
and Planet of the Apes (the original). Minority Report, the eagerly anticipated
collaboration between director Steven Spielberg and A-list star Tom Cruise,
works so well because it seems to recognise this fact and borrow from it,
while maintaining an identity all of its own.
Based on a Philip K. Dick short story, the film is set in a future (2054)
when law enforcement is controlled by a Pre-Crime squad of cops who can see
a murder before it happens, using the premonitions of three Pre-Cogs (or psychic
humans), and arrest the perpetrator before any offence occurs. As a result,
there has not been a murder in six years and the scheme looks set to go national.
Questions remain, however, over the reliability of the system and whether
potential ‘killers’ are being locked away for crimes they may never
commit.
One of its biggest supporters is Cruise’s mixed-up Chief John Anderton,
for whom Pre-Crime represents the chance to heal the personal torment suffered
following the abduction and murder of his son. Yet his loyalty is put to the
test when one of the Pre-Cogs foresees a murder committed by himself and he
is forced to go on the run to prove his ‘innocence’ and prevent
the crime from happening.
Having chartered darker territory in last year’s AI,
Spielberg ventures even further in Minority Report - creating an almost bleached
future (all blues and greys) in which humans are ‘policed’ by a
Big Brother-style network of cameras and computers which can account for a
person’s whereabouts at all times.
Struggling to exist in this ‘society’ is Cruise’s emotionally-detached
Anderson, a drug-addicted cop whose obsessive dedication to the Pre-Crime
cause belies an inner turmoil borne out of the responsibility he still feels
for the disappearance of his son.
It is to Spielberg’s credit, however, that Minority Report refrains from
employing the same sort of misty-eyed sentimentality which dogged AI, concentrating
instead on the moral conundrum presented by the Pre-Crime ethic, while keeping
the film tense and exciting throughout.
This is a thinking man’s action flick which, while dependent on CGI and
some clever set pieces, never loses sight of the human conflicts involved,
allowing its cast the chance to shine. Cruise, especially, is terrific, giving
a relatively low-key performance by his showy standards (there is less of
the smile which has begun to dominate), while Colin Farrell, as a cocky colleague,
Samantha Morton, as one of the Pre-Cogs, and Max Von Sydow, as the brains
behind Pre-Crime, present solid support.
Audiences
should also delight in the complexity of proceedings, as well as the frequently
witty insights into futuristic consumerism (advertising, for example, is geared
towards an individual’s needs!), while holding their breath at the brash
set pieces which include a jetpack chase through homes and alleyways, a fight
at a car construction plant and a particularly gruelling eye operation and
recovery.
The one niggle to be found is in the movie’s final moments, when that
Spielberg need for some sort of reassurance, or feel-good indulgence, serves
to provide a close which feels tacked-on; but in the main this is superior
film-making which more than does justice to the prodigious talents of its
central pairing. The report on this one makes for positive reading.
RELATED STORIES: Minority Report - the story behind the movie. Click
here...
Tom Cruises in for Minority Report premiere. Click here
for story...
