9.5, true entertainment

Rating: 9/10 (6 July 2002)

Few and fair between are films that indulge you with original visuals, a compelling storyline, strong preformances, and hardcore nudity. Minority Report lacks in that last criteria, but I'll let it go this time. It's an expertly crafted film.
For those living under a rock (but a rock equipped with a modem, no less) Tom Cruise, aka Penelope's Man-Bitch, leads this epic as Pre-Cop John Anderton. To those rock-dwellers who've avoided the ads and trailers and countless other reviews posted on IMDb and need the up-to-date, in this movie they can see murders before they happen, and its John's job to prevent that.
By "they" I mean a trio of "pre-cogs" who are so white they make Casper look like Richard Pryor. They lounge in a hot tub and are treated like kings. No, wait, no they're not. They're drugged into submission and live in a toliet (but a very nice toliet) and kept at just the right state of dreams to spew out these predictions. If there's a flaw in the system, is the treatment of the pre-cogs. One character says it verbatim: "It helps if you don't think of them as human." Um, hello Abolishment of Slavery, how's by you?

And you read it right, there's only three of them in the entire world. After 70 years or so, the entire world will collapse into murdering hordes again. I'm breathless with anticipation
But I digress. When Anderton himself is seen in a prevision, he goes on the lamb. One stunt spectacle after another, he's jumping from car to car, he's jumping from Jetpack Guy to Jetpack Guy (Chill! What else am I supposed to call them?) He's even jumping from catwalk to catwalk in a car factory that someone has inexplicably stockpiled with white vats of water whose only purpose is to fall on the guys doing the chasing. I figure its safer not to ask why, just sit back and enjoy.
I find the most clever of the films devises is a question pretty much left unasked. Some people may consider this a SPOILER, so stop reading and go enjoy the movie before you read further.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER, there, is that enough Mr. Alaska? He's probably not even reading.
Anderton finds the man in the prevision because he runs, BECAUSE he saw the prevision. He never would have ended up in that room had he not seen it as future event. Isn't this a paradox? Or is it one of those infinity loops where everything always comes full circle? Or have I just gone crossed-eyed. . .
But speaking logically, (which I know has no grounds in a Speilberg picture; leave it all to wonder and faith and ILM) why DO they lock up the would-be killers? Isn't preventing the murder enough? Of course, if they didn't threaten something horrific like life as vegetable, there'd be no reason for Anderton to do all that impressive jumping.
Cheers,
Jon