If there's a flaw, it's human - it always is

Rating: 8/10 (29 August 2007)

Spielberg does it again.
Minority Report is another fine film with a tone-deaf epilogue. It's hard to put my frustration into words. How many brilliantly crafted, intelligent science-fiction flicks do we get today? Very few... and, when one finally arrives, it ends with a whimper.
But I should have seen it coming. Spielberg is a peerless visual storyteller, but he is an odd choice to direct a movie based on a story by a pessimist like Philip K. Dick. It's like John Hughes adapting Lovecraft.
Minority Report takes place in a future where three "Pre-Cogs" can predict murders, so the Pre-Crime Unit led by John Anderton (Tom Cruise) can stop the killers in advance. When the Pre-Cogs see him shooting a man he doesn't even know, Anderton finds himself on the run, trying to unravel what's happening.
Cruise, Colin Farrell, Max Von Sydow and Samantha Norton all give solid performances. For most of its running time the movie is clever, thrilling, fun, Spielberg at his best; there are some really neat scenes, like the vision of the first murder and Anderton's rush against time to prevent it, or the sequence with Anderton and Agatha evading the Pre-Crime.
Alas, during its last act Minority Report collapses; it reaches several potentially interesting endings and ignores them all, choosing a sappy cop-out.
Still, what precedes it is good enough to recommend the movie - if only to ponder what could have been.
7,5/10