Prepare to be dazzled by this futuristic advertis...oops!...movie

Rating: 7/10 (8 July 2002)

Minority Report is a pretty decent flick, as just about any newspaper critic will tell you. However, I haven't seen much mention of the use of product placements. They seem to pop-up constantly, to the point of distraction, and left me with mixed feelings about the film. There are also significant plot ommisions and stuff that just plain makes no sense, but I guess that is to be expected. The product placements are significant because of the sheer number of them and how out of place they are. Hello, it's supposed to be the year 2054, right? I guess that all the brands we buy stuff from today are still dominating the market 50 years from now...after all, our grandparents were driving Lexuses 50 years ago, right? Oh, wait... Of course, Spielberg and company couldn't just use made-up brands of the future to drive home any point they were trying to make about ad saturation. Not when they could make millions by assuming that the people of the future still watch "Cops" on their holo-projectors and wear Remo shades. In fact, some scenes seem to be included solely for the purpose of pushing a product (i.e. the scene at a well-known clothing store with fashions that just so happen to look very 2002). The whole thing smacks of greed and a total lack of artistic integrity. Then again, maybe it's just me...