Cool and calculated

Rating: 8/10 (24 June 2002)

You'll enjoy this stylish blend of sci-fi and film noir if you're willing to suspend your disbelief at the door. Many reviewers have decried the plain lazy plot holes in Scott Frank and Jon Cohen's otherwise excellent screenplay, but in the end these deficiencies hardly matter. Movies dealing with predestination never answer the big questions effectively - they just use them as the springboard for a story. And 'Minority Report' tells a pretty good one, even if it does say where it's heading too soon and is occasionally marred by Spielberg's trademark mawkishness. Cruise is hugely enjoyable as the frantic John Anderton, and Colin Farrell does a really fine job of making you hate Detective Witwer. The film looks great, sounds great, holds your attention for all 147 minutes, and will even have you giggling at the spectacular product placements and some unexpectedly comic moments. This is a reasonably faithful adaptation of Philip K. Dick's short story so fans of the original should be pleased, although Act 3 does see the writers wandering off into Hollywood-ending territory (oddly reminiscent of 'The Fugitive') and has Spielberg wrapping things up on a typically optimistic false note. Still, it's refreshing to see a bunch of filmmakers tackling a sci-fi adaptation seriously, successfully, yet still with an eye on the marketplace. I don't see that as a compromise. If you're going to spend close to $100 million on a sci-fi project - and, let's face it, these days you have to - then you've got to consider the box-office. The result is a memorable film that strikes a good balance between deep thought and summer fun. It probably won't have enough explosions to please the die-hard action fans, nor enough depth to really thrill the sci-fi devotees Â– but it certainly worked for me.