Spielberg's gritty, hard edged SF thrill-fest

Rating: 9/10 (25 April 2007)

Minority Report was nominated best film of 2002 by quite a few film critics. Although I think that honour surely goes to the underrated SF film Cypher, Steven Spielberg's MR ranks highly in his film repertoire. Its intelligent science-fiction. A rare thing these days. It provides a fascinating view of our possible future (or futures). And Spielberg draws out a strong, commanding performance from Tom Cruise.
In 2054, the crime rates of Washington DC have all but vanished. Thanks to the PreCrime Division. Its a special bureau where with the aid of three psychics (called PreCogs), they can predict a crime about to take place before it even occurs. The opening sequences quite ingeniously draws us into this process, in the case of a man about to kill his adulterous wife and her partner.
John Anderton (Cruise) is one of PreCrime's top detectives. While identifying possible crimes about to happen, he gives the impression of a conductor leading an orchestra. Moving his arms about majestically, focused intently on numerous video screens, he pinpoints names, places and times with unnerving accuracy.
PreCrime has proved so successful that the Government wants it expanded into all cities. Not just Washington. But Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) of the Justice Department is convinced the system is flawed. And its only a matter of time before the cracks start to show themselves. John doesn't agree. He has complete confidence in the system. At least he does, until the next crime the PreCog's foresee is a murder committed by...John himself!
With less than 36 hours before the murder occurs, John must go on the run from the bureau he once admired to discover the truth. And see if its true. To see if John is about to kill somebody he doesn't even know.
Minority Report must rank as one of Spielberg's most intelligently crafted films to date. Granted when creating the Washington of the future, he's taken a leaf or two out of Blade Runner's book with enormous animated advertising billboards and the like, but he really has outdone himself in terms of set-design.
I'm not really sure where to begin when describing how the city looks. Because there is so much to see and hear, it's actually a little hard to recall. Some moments that spring to mind are the vertically inclined highways for cars of the future, but the best way to experience Spielberg's superb flights of imagination is by watching the film itself.
Also, screenwriters Jon Cohen and Scott Frank have really placed a superb and masterfully intricate screenplay at Spielberg's disposal. They may have been inspired by Raymond Chandler, but there's a finite sense of paranoia running through the film. Some of the dialogue is beautifully constructed around some tough moral dilemmas for Cruise's character. Not to mention the fact it raises some fascinating ethical viewpoints.
If we actually had a process for learning the identities of future murderers, and they were stopped, than is it ethically right to imprison them for crimes they never committed? Or mind-bending conceits like trying to stop a future event may be the very thing that sets it in motion. Its nice to see a SF film that actually makes you think in this day and age.
I'm glad to see that Spielberg has started to come out of juvenile wish fulfilment fantasies like ET and Hook. With his transition into the 21st Century, he started with AI which was initially promising, but Spielberg got lost somewhere along the way with that film. With Minority Report, he has redeemed himself considerably. This is a much grittier and downbeat Spielberg film than any of his others so far. Even things like sexuality and drug abuse crop up. There may be hope for him yet!
Still this being a Spielberg film, there are the customary family values and parental issues that are always ever present in whatever he gets his hands on. John was a man who lost his son and this has left him a broken man. Spielberg ties this into John's dilemma, which makes the final revelations a little disappointing, but not enough to ruin the film as a whole.
Spielberg is still a master of action and he stages some fantastic set-pieces. I love the moment when Cruise has to hide in bathwater from these mechanical spiders. They comb the building searching for him, and the way the camera hovers overhead on the different apartments and the people in them, it reminded me of Rear Window.
The one scene I loved is when John kidnaps one of the PreCogs, Agatha, for help. They're being chased by PreCrime at the time, and she foresees their methods so they know exactly what to do to avoid them. Its brilliantly directed. And funny too!
Minority Report is a thrilling piece of entertainment. It all works on the level of a beautifully unfolding puzzle. Towards the end, the pace flags a little, but its still superb entertainment. And the final closing shot is a scene of such wonderful depth perception it makes MR worth seeing for this one moment alone.