The Secret Genius Of Minority Report

Rating: 10/10 (28 June 2002)

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW
Upon recent viewing of Minority Report for the third time, I'd like to share with you the secret of its brilliance. First of all Max von Sydow is my favorite actor, and without any bias I can say that his performance was easily the best in the film next to Samantha Morton's. Secondly, I should tell you that I think A.I. was a terrible mess, and upon first and second viewing of Minority Report I thought the ending was too cliched and happy, not to mention too rushed and full of plot holes. However I, and others I saw it with can now say that Spielberg pulled a Kubrick on us. It is now clear and obvious to me that everything after John entered containment was nothing more than a fabrication in his mind. Think about it. First we already know that John has basically figured out that Burgess was behind the murders, seeing how Burgess was the only other to know about the Minority Reports and he helped to pioneer the interface, not only that but he is the only one with the access and the knowhow to setup the murders so brilliantly and wipe out all the minority reports that should have been stored in containment. Secondly, Gideon tells John as he is being put into containment that everyone who goes in sees their whole life flash before their eyes and its like all your dreams come true. Thirdly, everyone's acting up to this point had been very detailed and impressive, but when the fabrication begins, its almost like the acting was purposefully contrived and the tone of the film changes completely as if it were just one desperate man's hopes and dreams and speculation of how things should have gone. Also Burgess's slip of the tongue with Lara would not have happened, we have already become aware that he is too smart to start becoming so dumb near the end. And Lara using the eyeball after John's containment, John was able to use his eyes to get in earlier because he had not actually committed the murder yet, so he wasn't officially stamped convict, but afterward she obviously would not be able to use them. Burgess killing himself at the end, is completely out of character, he has already killed 2 innocents that we know of, and covered up at least a dozen more just to protect Precrime, if this situation wasn't a dream he still would have killed John. Burgess having the Minority Report on himself at the end is not in tune with the Burgess we got to know earlier. I could go on, and on about the subtle, but obviously intentional plot holes and strange acting, and strange character arcs that Spielberg puts in the end. The only reason could be that this is a dream sequence. John is only seeing what he wants to see, he is speculating about what happened and he probably has most of it right except for the part where he think that everything is all right now, nothing is all right, Burgess did get away with it, John is still imprisoned. This is a brilliant turn for Spielberg. Just like the flashing sign that said exactly that (you only see what you want to see) in the mall where Anderton and Agatha were running from the precrime officers. In retrospect, this film is so Blade-Runner esque. The reason I say that this is a Kubrickian touch, and in my opinion the true definitive homage to Kubrick, is that there is no blatant touch, or hint or explanation that this was a dream sequence, not like in Vanilla Sky, only the small intentional inconsistencies and change in tone that prove this to be true. I think that when people really start to notice this and ultimately realize that this was a dream sequence, they will see just how dark and bleak and cynical the ending really was. Watch the film again, really pay attention and you will see what I mean.