severely disappointing

Rating: 3/10 (5 February 2005)

This movie joins the ranks of A.I. and Pearl Harbor as a film that looked promising from the previews and then ended up being immensely disappointing. And, like A.I., it is another case of a movie that could have been a decent conceptual or action flick, but was ruined by Steven Spielberg with excess sugary-sweet sentimentality. It mysteriously got great reviews, but I'm having trouble figuring out why.
Firstly, the story is extremely creative and thought-provoking, but its execution falls short. Set in the future, Minority Report tells the story of an experimental new way of fighting crime, using three "Pre-Cogs", or humanlike creatures who supposedly can see murders before they take place and provide the names of the killer and victim. In this way, the Pre-Crime unit can arrest the suspect before any crime is even committed, thus preventing murder from happening. It sounds like a great idea in theory, but alas, nothing is ever as perfect as it seems. The head of the Pre-Crime unit, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is shocked when his name turns up as the future killer of a man he's never even met, and spends the rest of the movie trying to get to the bottom of things.
This is a great idea for a movie. There's so much to explore - the conflict between determinism and free will, for example, or the moral and legal implications of convicting someone for a crime that hasn't been committed yet. Add action sequences featuring vertically-flying cars, virtual reality, and jumps from high elevations, and its potential rises even more.
But that's where the fun ends. Because that's where other elements come in. An ex-wife whose crying on cue is only slightly more nauseating than her sudden concern for her husband. A crazy old lady who has man-eating plants as a security system. A scene with eyeballs that can only be described as gratuitous grossness. Pre-cogs who spend most of the movie lying completely still, and then suddenly develop the ability to speak, interact, and have character traits and histories. All in all, the movie never really gets going and never really gets to where it could be.
In other words, a serious disappointment.