Something of a disappointment (spoilers throughout)

Rating: Null/10 (27 November 2005)

A complicated plot should never be confused with genuine complexity, as a story that relies completely on twists and narrative gymnastics is as shallow as cinema gets. Sure you may be worked hard to figure everything out but if the answer is essentially meaningless or trite, then so what? And that's kind of the feeling you get from watching Minority Report. You're made to struggle and you're made to decipher a labyrinthine plot, but the revelation when it comes is like something out of Agatha Christie. Basically the film's a whodunit with bells and whistles on.
The emotions, too, don't help the film. As you'd expect from Spielberg every emotional moment is covered in a thick layer of treacle. There's the bit when Samantha Morton talks about how much love used to be in Anderton's house. It could have been a nice moment but the bright light, tears and sappy dialogue is ordering you how to feel. And then there's the video of Anderton's dead son. Again it could have been a nice moment but instead the kid is so gosh-darn cute that it defies belief. Ordinary kids just aren't like that.
Much more successful, somewhat surprisingly for Spielberg, are the darker moments. There's a great scene when you see Anderton and his kid at the swimming pool. Anderton sinks to the bottom to show how long he can hold his breath, but then when he resurfaces his kid has gone. It captures all the terror of losing a child with great skill.
I also like the scene where Anderton is confronted with his child's 'killer'. Anderton, quite rightly, is utterly deranged and Cruise does an excellent job of selling the character's anger and grief. Therefore it's slightly annoying that these great darker moments have to co-exist with such schmaltz. Just take the ending. Pre-crime is shut down, Anderton is reunited with his wife, Anderton's wife is pregnant and the pre-cogs live happily ever after. It's far too neat and tidy, especially for what's supposed to be a gritty thriller.
Another regard in which the film is a disappoint is the action. You've got silly jetpack fights, dull fistfights (the Cruise/Farrell fight in the factory is a snoozer) and a computery sequence where Anderton superhumanly jumps from speeding car to speeding car. Plus the action is often punctuated with broad humour. During the jetpack fight the characters crash through ceilings and walls where people are obliviously going about their daily lives (they don't seem to hear the tremendous racket) and at the end of the scene where Anderton escapes from the car he crashes into a yoga class where people are folded in half; the humour feels dim-witted and out place. But the most ludicrous use of humour is when Anderton chases after his eyeballs. In another film it could have been quite funny, but again here it's misplaced.
The eyes remind me of another problem: the many plot holes. I mean, how come Anderton can get back into the police station after being identified as someone who's going to commit a murder? Surely the first thing that would happen would be that his security clearance would be revoked. And then later his wife uses the eyes to get into the prison to free her husband. It's lazy plotting.
Just as lazy is the way that Lamar (Max von Sydow) reveals his guilt to Anderton's wife. She mentions a murder and then Lamar, supposedly not knowing anything about the murder in question, mentions drowning even though he hasn't been told as such. It's the way that criminals reveal themselves in Murder, She Wrote and Columbo. It shouldn't happen in a film of this calibre.
Thankfully, though, for every bad thing in the film there's something good. The pre-crime murders (especially the opening one with the scissors) are superbly filmed (as is the arrest), the scene with the electronic spiders is excellent (I like the overhead shot of all the rooms as the spiders methodically go about their work), the nightmarish eye operation and subsequent recuperation is terrific and the pre-crime advertisement ("I was going to be stabbed" "Right here.") is suitably cheesy. I also like the cleverness of the murder that is disguised as an echo and the suddenness in which Lamar shoots Farrell's character. But even the ingenious murder doesn't necessarily stand up to scrutiny. There's an attempted murder, the woman is saved and then the police just walk off and leave her alone. Then Lamar pops up and kills her. I would have thought the police would have at least taken care of the woman and given her a lift back home after a close brush with death.
But the film's biggest success is in portraying a perfect world that would actually be quite hellish to live in. The cops here are like the Thought Police. Suddenly you're being arrested for something you haven't done but something you're going to do. The whole system abolishes freedom of action. And while that may be good if you were going to be murdered by your spouse, it wouldn't be so good if you were intent on killing someone that had done great wrong to you  someone that was bribing you or abusing a loved one. Plus if a despot somehow entered the White House, any violent form of protest would be up that famous creek without a paddle.
And the system in the film itself is pretty corrupt. They keep these three pre-cogs locked up in a chamber and pump them full of drugs so that they can continually suffer nightmarish visions. What an evil bunch of bastards.
But the one thing I haven't mentioned is all the time paradoxes. And the reason I haven't mentioned them is because thinking about them makes me go cross-eyed