Way Down the List of Spielberg's Credits.

Rating: Null/10 (20 July 2002)

Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report", like his equally under-achieving "A.I.: Artificial Intelligence", loses its way late and the all-world director proves once again that he is beginning to have trouble knowing when to punch the stop button. It is the not-too-distant-future and crimes have become a thing of the past as a new system has been developed to prevent crimes before they occur. Max von Sydow is the mastermind behind the so-called flawless system and Tom Cruise leads the special task force of police officers. However when Cruise becomes the man to commit a murder, he becomes determined to show that he has been somehow set up by snooping FBI man Colin Farrell and that the possibility of him committing a murder is ludicrous. Naturally a whole host of twists of turns will occur as Cruise does his best Harrison Ford in "The Fugitive" imitation to clear his name and find out the real truth. The screenplay sputters way too much for the film to be a complete success. Spielberg's direction starts out strong, but he soon too becomes a bit overwhelmed by the whole project it seems. Cruise does a good job here, but he gets little support from the rest of the cast and soon he seems a bit out-of-place as the film progresses. Colin Farrell though does an excellent job here as he is easily the film's greatest plus. He adds depth and interest to the film when he is on screen, but to be honest his screen-time is not near enough. Spielberg continues to try to copy techniques used by Stanley Kubrick and when he does this the whole project eventually collapses. This was true with "A.I." and it is true once again with "Minority Report". 4 stars out of 5.