Summer Cinema: ‘Minority Report’
If someone knows the events of the future are they stuck with the lot fate has thrown them or do they still have the choice to change what may be? That is the basis for Stephen Spielberg’s newest film – and probably the best film the summer has offered so far – “Minority Report.”
Tom Cruise stars as John Atherton, the chief of police for the precrime unit in Washington, D.C., in the year 2054. Three “precogs” are used to predict the details, date and time of murders people are going to commit, and then the precrime officers arrest the person for that future murder.
The system is supposedly perfect, but after Ed Witwer (Colin Ferrell), a federal agent, shows up, the precogs see John committing a murder, thus making the hunter the hunted. However, John has never met the person he is supposed to kill. So while he is running from his own team of officers he strives to understand who framed him, who the man he is supposed to kill is and if there is any way around this future that has been predicted for him. He enlists the help of one of the precogs, Agatha (Samantha Morton), a haunting and haunted young woman who uses her ability to see the future to help John along the way while pleading with him to see what she sees as she flashes scenes of a woman’s drowning.
This is a brilliant movie, by far the best offering of the summer. For those who love to be mentally stimulated by movies, it is full of moral questions that leave the audience to ponder their meaning. For those who just want to be entertained, it has intense action, humor, characters you love to hate and enough technological gadgets to give Star Trek a run for its money.
While developing the movie, Spielberg hired a panel of futurists to come up with life in the year 2054. The result was a mixture of personalized advertisements, interactive view screens and wall-climbing automobiles. Spielberg’s vision of the future is one where there is a distinct line between the rich and the poor, and every person can be easily tracked through incessant eye-scanning whether by cameras, mechanical spiders or billboards in the slums.
There are also obvious Kubrekian influences still left over from Spielberg’s last film, “A.I.” The incessant eye scanning that robs the citizenry of any means of privacy and the desperate, dirty slums of the poor have definite ties to Rouge City and even the playground of “A Clockwork Orange.” But this is a Spielberg film complete with strained relationships and lost children, and the Spielbergian ideals win out in the end.
The film clocks in at around two and one-half hours, but it is 150 minutes of nonstop action and intrigue. Unlike long films such as “Titanic” and “Pearl Harbor,” the viewer does not have to sit through 90 minutes of exposition and silly love stories before the action begins. It opens with a murder being prevented and only slows down to provide that feel good ending that ties up the loose ends and leaves the characters smarter for the experience. Some may find the ending too abrupt and slow, but it fits the movie.
Petty concerns aside “Minority Report” offers the first real rush of the summer and is worth the $6 ticket.
Grade: A-