A meaty story that is gripping until the very end

Rating: 9/10 (14 July 2002)

The film is set in a future where people are arrested for crime before it is committed, thanks to the information supplied to the authorities by three pre-cognitives. Tom Cruise plays cop John Anderton who is forced to go on the run to avoid arrest for a murder that he is expected to commit in 36 hours. Immediately, this is an intriguing prospect for a film.
Following, Vanilla Sky', I was interested to see whether Tom Cruise's next cinematic release would be a more mainstream one. The promotional posters suggest fast pace action and the trailer I had seen consisted of several cool and slick looking set-pieces: Tom Cruise sorting through images generated by the Pre-Cogs with waves of gloved hands in search of clues to the location of a crime and spider robots scurrying across the floor while Cruise is submerged in the bath. What I feared was another Mission Impossible' a film with a couple of cool set-pieces but with little substance to the plot.
With Minority Report, it is not non-stop action as one may expect but this is by no means a bad thing. Instead Spielberg treats us to a meaty story with twists that is gripping until the very end where the plot springs one final surprise with the unmasking of the villain of the film. Perhaps a less experienced director would have been less ambitious with the storyline and produced a less satisfactory film.
The film has a dark and sinister feel throughout which is to a large extent brought about by the play-back of disturbing and violent visions of the future combined with the pre-cognitives' bizarre appearance.

A combination of mastery from Spielberg and star power of Cruise have resulted in an impressive piece of work that is both visually and mentally stimulating. There is however, a little too much techie speak for my liking which does give the feeling later on that I had missed something crucial but that only makes the film worthy of a second viewing.
This could well end up being one of the best films of the year.