An bland Sci-fi flick

Rating: Null/10 (23 June 2002)

Don't be fooled. This is definitely not up in Blade Runner's class. It
has potential to be one but unfortunately there are too many plot
holes to make the film truly succesful. For example, I found it
ridiculous that the entire pre-crime unit would fully support a
system that actually only relies on ONE pre-cogs to determine a
future killer. So much so that if she's taken away it's enough to
shut the entire system down as proven in the film. Why would
anyone with a brain let them get away with this? And it's not like
this is one of the 'secrets' that Max Von Sydow's character hides
from everyone in the pre-crime dept. If that had been the case, it
would have been acceptable. But the fact is, even the drug
administrator person who takes care the pre-cogs know that only
the female one is the key to everything.
To top this off, the idea of using pre-cogs to see future crime itself
is a bit stupid. The older woman in the film mentioned how
pre-cogs are originally children who has this 'gift' of being able to
see future crimes. Now, surely there aren't that many pre-cogs
even in this futuristic world, unless they are an entirely different
race to human. But they are just human with 'future-vision' ability.
The problem is, what would happen if the female pre-cogs and her
two other counterpart dies? If they are human, surely sooner or
later they'll face the same fate as the rest of other humans: death.
What will happen once they are dead? Obviously they can't be as
easily replaced as pencil because otherwise they would have had
a substitute when John kidnapped Agatha (the female pre-cogs).
So the entire idea of pre-crime and precogs is already shaky from
the start.
Acting wise, Colin Farrell shows that he really is indeed, worth all
the 'upcoming star' hype. The guy's got talent and I found his
gumshoe-like detective is reminiscent of old film noir detective. It's
a shame that he's not the main character in this film because it
seems that Farrell's character, Ed Witwer is the sharpest, more
interesting one in comparison to Cruise's character, John
Anderton. Speaking of Cruise, he does his usual patented 'tough
guy' action here role. Nothing outstanding but decent enough,
especially compared to the acting skills displayed on recent films
like Star Wars episode 2. The problem with Cruise, however, is
that he is not the sort of guy that audience can easily identify with.
I think something is wrong when you want the main character to
indeed, commit the crime that he's been accused of. It also
doesn't help that Anderton isn't exactly the sharpest knife around in
the film. He doesn't even figure out who the real problem maker
behind his problem is until his ex-wife set him free from the
lifetime imprisonment that he was facing due to the crime
accusation. Samantha Morton and Max Von Sydow do very well
especially with the limited amount of screen time that their
characters get on the film.
Action and CGI-wise, the film is mixed bags. There are some
impressive moments (ie. the spider tracker sequence) and some
dull or jarring moments. I understand that Spielberg wants to
emphasise the fact that in the future, the distinction between the
rich and the poor is even wider. But the special effects used to
show the 'richer area' is so jarring that I originally thought that the
pre-crime is actually a futuristic police department that can go back
in time to save other people. This is due to the fact that the world
of the 'rich' (exemplify by hi-tech expensive apartment) such as the
pre-crime detectives' like Anderton and the world of the 'poor' (who
live in your normal-looking house) are so different that when the
film switch from one area to the next, it feels like I was watching
two different film in two different time frame.