Minority Report: the gravity of unbelief.

Rating: 5/10 (18 May 2005)

A story is a bit like sleep: wake me up all-of-a-sudden and I am not going to be in the best of moods. Certainly not. This happened to me with Minority Report. It is flawed with moments which drag you out of the story, with incidents in which the suspense of disbelieve loses from the gravity of unbelief. Just a list. The first thing was the usage of stereotypes: - The weird sex frustrated guy who takes care of the precogs and wallows over the female precogs. - The depraved doctor who helps cruise getting a new set of eyes. - The sleazy guy who does all for money and helps cruise download the images from Agatha. But Max Von Sydow's role and that of cruises ex wife are much of the same issue.
The second thing is the hassle with gimmicks: the eyes (or should I say eye scans) for instance. They are too much of a story maker: cruise carries them around in a bag (after having had them replaced), they give access to everything, billboards react to them and at the end his ex-wife liberates him from prison with them. It's rather too much to believe in. And eye scans seems to be the only way in 2054 of identifying people. There is a John Doe in prison, which can't be identified because he has changed his eyes. How odd. What happened to things like photographs, finger-prints, dental patterns and DNA? The same can be said of the way they investigate the pre-crime. We see one guy doing all the work. That's is an inefficient way of working? Why not use a whole team assisted by computers? Well otherwise cruise wouldn't be a star I think.
The third thing is that the plot is helped along by unbelievable plot turns. An example is that nobody bothers to revoke cruises access to high security area's or his bank account nor are there any alarms going of when he uses them. He and his ex-wife uses his eyes to get access to the precrime HQ and the prison even up until the end of the movie and this is no mere bickering from my side: without this access the movie would have fallen apart. Also cruise seems to have no problem withdrawing money or getting access to crucial files.
The fourth thing is the action scenes. Some are good, but probably in an effort to outdo the matrix cruise takes on 5 to 6 opponents at the same time. This is a bit much for me to accept, as cruise is no neo. He is merely human.
All in all there are too many moment of wakening and to few moments of greatness who help you sleep.
(Post mortem:) Some say this movie is a bit like a film noir, but it's not. A film noir is a dark movie in which a cynical pessimistic main character is sucked into a world of crime and evil and this decline usually reflected in his own personal decline (he is beaten up, grows a beard, drinks, smoke etc). The struggle against the world of crime and evil is mirrored by a personal struggle between what is good and what is bad. Cruise looks as dandy at the end of the movie as he does at the beginning nor see any drawn out struggle in his persona. Usually the hero is a small fish: a detective (either free lance of from the police), a journalist or a gangster. A marginal figure. Nothing of this has anything to do with cruise; he's the head of pre-crime a hero type who through decisive action wins all. Although not a strict requirement: there is no femme fatale. It would have made this movie probably far better if there had been one. It lacks the typical film noir language (cynical remarks, lucid discussions and interest tag lines for instance). It lacks the cynical dark mood or the associated film style. It's no film noir.