Interpretations

Rating: 7/10 (23 May 2016)

It's the year 2054 and mankind through the good graces of pioneering criminologist Max Von Sydow we're about to abolish crime all together. Von Sydow employs three psychics, no doubt the three best in the world and while it looks life is a pretty dull thing for them, spending all that time in water the better to receive images they're doing yeoman service to mankind anticipating murders to come. Right at the beginning of the film we see them in action as police are dispatched to capture Arye Gross as he's about to murder his wife and her boy toy.
But some disturbing images come in regarding police chief Tom Cruise murdering a man who he doesn't even know. Now Cruise is a Richard Kimble like fugitive and he hasn't done the terrible deed he's supposed to do. But one of the water bound psychics turns in a different interpretation of the images she sees. It's that Minority Report that Cruise is interested in so Samantha Morton is taken by Tom who wants very much to find out what's going so he can alter his destiny if possible.
I won't say more other than destinies can be altered and images can be manipulated and wrongly interpreted by some malevolent forces at work.
Cruise and Von Sydow and the rest of the cast turn in some fine performances for Steven Spielberg. And Spielberg's own vision of the future is fascinating. I did love those images of horses making a comeback as a method of transportation. I'm guessing that fossil fuels had polluted the planet enough and we wanted biodegradable waste once again.
Science fiction is always interesting, even the worst future films offer us someone's vision of the future be Steven Spielberg or Ed Wood. Spielberg at least has the talent to bring it off.
And maybe crime prevention taken to its ultimate is not such a good thing. Watch Minority Report and see how you feel.