Another half-baked, cheezy, expensive Spielberg film

Rating: 1/10 (8 August 2002)

I really do not understand the critical acclaim this film is receiving. (I may give away some of the story, so only continue if you know it.) It started big, and then fizzled away into nothing. People claim that it is intellectual, that it makes you think-but I can't disagree more. After A.I., Spielberg is now attempting to take the place in our cinematic world of Stanley Kubrick, stooping so low as to add a lame pastiche of Clockwork Orange. Spielberg is not Kubrick, and this film is far from intellectual. The strands of the plot, such as the entire concept of the minority report, fizzle out and are not picked up again. The correlation to the current terrorism problem is cute, but not really there. This is a situation where people can actually see the future (and I might add that their "slavery" to this cause is also not addressed-the Pre-cogs are completely de-humanized into alien-like, pale-faced victims that are not really treated like victims). At the end of the film I really didn't care about the girl whose mother was murdered by the leader of the Pre-Crime organization. Sure, it was kind of cool to watch, but I think this is another Spielberg film that wows us with really cool effects, what turns out to be a cheesy plot, and the usual happy-dappy American ending. I am constantly amazed at how Spielberg seems to fool the critics into thinking he is good, that he produces work that makes you think-when it never does. Maybe if more Americans knew how to read.....