Majority support

Rating: Null/10 (7 July 2002)

The first-time pairing of director Steven Spielberg and producer-actor Tom Cruise promises something really special, but their ambitious work only partially delivers. The premise of this sci-fi movie, based on a Philip Dick short story of 1956, is that in a Washington DC of 2054 special humans called "pre-cogs" (the most important played by the androgynous Samantha Morton) can forsee future murders so accurately that a Pre-Crime Unit, with Cruise as top cop, is able to intervene and arrest the potential murderer before he kills his victim.
If one can go with this bizarre idea, it's still hard to understand how, at the end of the day, the assailant apparently has a choice. There are other plot incredulties, such as how the Pre-Crime people neglect to withdraw Cruise's corneal security clearance once he himself is identified as a future murderer and goes on the run.
However, if one can overlook these plot weaknesses, a tendency to introduce unnecessary humour, and a couple of sentimental final scenes, the film has much to commend it, above all a roller-coaster action-packed ride with some sharp twists in the tale. The feel of the movie - dark, washed-out colours and hi-tech gadgetry & equipment such as a wall-screen for constructing digital evidence - and the sound of it - music from four classical composers plus John Williams - create a world reminiscent of "Metropolis" or "Blade Runner" and there are some terrific sequences such as the chase by jetpack-enabled police and a reconnaissance operation by robotic spiders.

In short, "Minority Report" is going to have majority support, but the aforementioned "Blade Runner" it isn't.