It's movies like this that put most other movies to shame.

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2002)

It seems that most very good movies that we see now are smaller films. The big-budget studio jobs insult our intelligence more and more but corporate ass holes keep on making them because people keep on watching. But when you think of the better movies of even just the last year, many of them (Gosford Park, Monster's Ball, Innocence, AmÃ©lie, In the Bedroom and Ghost World) are more obscure films that I can't see unless I sit on a bus for two hours. The Fast Runner hasn't even come to my local theatre, and I'm Canadian, and it seems to be one of the best Canadian projects ever. So it's refreshing when a major, major release finds a way of being complicated, involving and exciting all at the same time. Plus it shows that somebody is confident that the general public's brains are more than just mush.
Minority Report is a tightly woven, emotional, thrilling story. It has action, but is more than just an action movie. Even though it takes place more than fifty years in the future, against a vivid, technically enhanced backdrop, its characters, their motives, and everything about it has a universal tone than rings true, more than many of the lame brained movies which take place at present. Plus, it's the most entertaining movie I've seen this year.
Most people reading this will know that Tom Cruise plays John Anderton, a pre-crime cop who goes on the lamb with one of the murder predicting pre-cogs, Agatha (Samantha Morton), after he is identified as someone who will soon commit a murder. Anymore exposition would be unnecessary and possibly spoiling.
The solid, capable cast also includes Max von Sydow and Colin Farrell, but the best performances of the movie belong to Cruise and Morton. Cruise is always real, with his added classic movie star appeal, in one of his best performances. He doesn't play up being the emotionally tortured work-alcoholic that he is, which, in a roundabout way, augments the pathos evoked for that aspect of his character. Morton takes a role that could have been totally cornball and overwrought and makes Agatha's sickliness credible; and her weird mutterings don't come off as some actor trying to be "weird".
The only way a movie like this could get made is with a director behind it who has the studio's confidence behind him, 100%. Nobody has that more than Steven Spielberg who, with movies like E.T. and Jaws, has always found a way of perfectly blending special effects with the story instead of coming off as showy. His pacing feels natural, instead of formulaic; a trait which has proven him one of the most solid storytellers in the movies. He succeeds in Minority Report where he didn't in A.I. Adding humor where it fits in perfectly, choosing a moral dilemma we can identify with and knowing when it's time to end the thing, although I felt it waned slightly, very slightly, towards the end. Maybe I just need to see it again.
If you generally like Steven Spielberg's work, wanted to like A.I., and like what movies are all about, you should definitely see Minority Report.