Everybody Runs...Or walks...in this conceptually interesting thriller

Rating: 7/10 (22 September 2013)

Minority Report is classic big-budgeted Steven Spielberg. In the hands of a more subtle but equally competent director, I think the film would have benefited from being a far superior movie. That's not to say Steven is not one of the best directors around, he is, but he is excellent at a certain type of filmmaking that I don't believe is particularly refined. In a science fiction thriller such as this, a sleek, lean, and mean direction is needed. The characters need to be more elaborated upon. Spielberg attempts to thrown in together special effects, plot twists, questions about morality, action, and Tom Cruise all in one basket. Not good. Steven Spielberg in my opinion is not a great mainstream action director, with a few exceptions (including the unforgettable Private Ryan). Every violent scene in Minority Report felt a bit too staged, the punches a bit too bland. John Anderton (Cruise)'s backstory, while conceptually devastating, enacted on the screen is a bit overly sentimental. It felt like a huge divergent too from the bigger meat of the yarn - the pre cogs and Anderton's alternate future. What is a nice twist is the ambiguity about the film's happy ending, and whether or not it is a dream. Some would interpret it to be so, others not. Inception seems to have heavily borrowed ideas from Minority Report, in addition to The Matrix (as the story was written long before The Matrix). It's definitely influential, and being Spielberg is definitely something to see, but Spielberg's bombastic approach to all of his films I think has undermined the film's full potential to be a haunting and subtle film that stays with you. Alas Minority Report, while full of cool ideas, images, and effects, is easily forgettable.