Just might restore one's faith in the Hollywood machine...

Rating: 9/10 (25 June 2002)

Sparked to go see this one out of sheer morbid curiosity after the "A.I." debacle (a year old movie I still have yet to decide whether I liked or not) and by some very positive reviews from critics, this is one of those rare Hollywood films (like last month's "Insomnia)" that I was literally shocked by how good it was and how much I liked it. Spielberg's first attempt at film noir is quite the doozy, and it's always a treat to see an actor like Tom Cruise actually try to act and inhabit a character instead of just projecting his ego on screen and playing what is essentially himself (much the same way Pacino delivered an Oscar-worthy performance in "Insomnia"). What is so pleasing about this film is the way it follows all of the traditional film noir rules (betrayals, mysteries, and plot twists galore, memorable dialogue, philosophizing, great chase scenes, intricate detail into crime and detection) while at the same time giving us one of the most well thought out, beautifully designed, and utterly captivating views of the near future ever brought to screen that falls somewhere between over the top Verhoueven satire ("Total Recall"/"Starship Troopers") and Kubrickian dystopia ("2001", "Clockwork Orange"). Unlike "A.I.", this film also benefits from some much needed sense of humor to offset the often disturbing imagery, and also isn't afraid to utilize a nice tidy ending and many genre clichÃ©s (stunning action sequences, predictable but still powerful plot twists) to propel the story. I for one have become a huge fan of this latter day Spielberg, the more mature, darker, and clearly Kubrick inspired auteur. In the end, Minority Report may up come a few straws short of a pure classic, but when so much of what Hollywood puts out there for mass consumers is pure drivel, it is nice to see that some people in La-La land are still making one hell of an effort to truly entertain.