Oh look, it's another dull big budget sci fi action film loosely based on a Philip K. Dick story. (possible spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (16 February 2003)

(Spoilers might follow) I think Steven Spielberg is one of the most overrated directors in film history, and Tom Cruise is a star (I hesitate to call him an actor) I can't stand, but as a Philip K. Dick fan of many years, I approached this movie with an open mind, hoping it was going to be THE great PKD adaptation. It isn't. While there are some dazzling special effects on screen (something to be expected for a $100 million + budget!) it very quickly becomes your standard man-on-the-run action movie, just like 'Total Recall' and 'Impostor'. The script is pretty pedestrian, and is only loosely based on the original Dick short story 'The Minority Report'. A few basics are the same - a cop in charge of the Precrime division which works on information supplied by "precogs" with apparent powers to foresee the future finds out he is going to kill a total stranger - but that's about it. In the story the Cruise character is an old man, there is no von Sydow character, the Precrime section can predict all kinds of crime, not just murder, the man Anderton is supposed to kill is completely different and for different reasons, the precogs themselves are idiots and Anderton doesn't kidnap one of them, and the whole idea of "minority reports" is completely different. While the original story was far from Philip K. Dick's best work it was much more interesting and thought provoking (and much less predictable) than this movie. One has to wonder why Hollywood continually buys stories and then rewrites them into something almost unrecognisable, and invariably inferior. I also must wonder why they choose Philip K. Dick, one of the most cerebral and eccentric of science fiction writers, to adapt into ACTION MOVIES, instead of say, Robert Heinlein or Larry Niven or somebody more suitable. Anyway, who knows. 'Minority Report' is yet another overblown disappointing science fiction movie where more thought has been put into the special effects than the script. Don't expect much and you might find it passable. Personally I would have thought it would have been better to have made it for a tenth or the budget and with someone like Lance Henriksen or even Jean Claude Van Damme as the stars and sent it straight to video.