Half An Hour Too Long... But Good Stuff!

Rating: 7/10 (29 March 2005)

MINORITY REPORT (3+ outta 5 stars) Interesting premise (inspired by a short story by Philip K Dick) about a future society whose law enforcement relies on a trio of powerful psychics who can predict crimes before they happen so that the perpetrators can be apprehended *before* the harm is done. Complications ensue when one of the top law officers (Tom Cruise) becomes implicated in a murder. He goes on the lam, waiting for a chance to prove that he has no intention of killing anyone and doesn't even *know* the man is supposed to kill. I would probably like this movie twice as much if it had the last half hour chopped off. The true climax of the movie comes when Cruise finally confronts the man he is supposed to kill. (An extremely powerful confrontation that actually had me in tears the first time I saw it.) After that we get a totally predictable finale with the good guys triumphing over the bad guys (and neatly side-stepping a lot of the murkier issues of morality and justice raised in the first 4/5 of the film). Based on this and "A-I" I am beginning to think that ALL Spielberg movies should just automatically have the last 30 minutes chopped off. Still, this is a fun movie... probably Spielberg's best action movie since the original "Raiders of the Lost Ark". There are a few goofy scenes of "comedy relief" that may be inspired by Terry Gilliam's films... but they seem really out of place here (an eyeball-chasing scene in particular).