Future Crime Thriller!

Rating: 8/10 (27 March 2012)

I remember when Minority Report first came out and it improved with a second viewing of the future.
The future is an interesting place; your advertising becomes personalized when you get eye scans upon walking into a store. Advertising is really expansive. And cars are automatic affairs running on rolling roads, reminiscent of Robert Heinlein's vision of "The Roads Must Roll" story.
Anyway, Phillip K. Dick (Blade Runner) came up with a short story adapted to film about a six year experiment called the Pre Crime Unit -- clairvoyants floating in a tank who together come up with an agreed-upon vision of the future -- a future where they can predict murders.
The pre crime cops jump on the murderers as they're about to commit a crime, after all the trio psychics are never wrong. Or are they? There are people who greatly depend on this system and when John Anderton and a government agent stumble onto some anomalies in the system, they become targeted by these special interests.
Spielberg spends a lot of time building up the Anderton character -- a man on drugs and greatly depressed on the disappearance of his son. And divorced from a woman who could not stand the reminder of her son whenever she looked in Anderton's eyes. Pretty sad.
Lots of chases and lots of fighting with the occasional peak at the future make for some interesting science fiction entertainment -- but at two hours, wow! Tom Cruise and Colin Farrell both play their characters well though I would have liked to have seen more character development in Colin's character.
Rental recommended!