Movie Review – “Minority Report”

I’m churning through the list of requests
slowly but surely. That list now has e-mail links
next to every entry, so requesting things just got a
little more convenient.

Cast, Crew, and Other Info

Tom Cruise as John Anderton

Max Von Sydow as Lamar Burgess

Colin Farrell as Danny Witwer

Screenplay by Scott Frank and John Cohen, based on a
short story by
Philip K. Dick

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Complete information is available from the
IMDB
.

This
DVD release

includes English, French, and Spanish as spoken
soundtracks and
subtitles.


Past movie reviews can be found here.

Premise

In a future where crime is pre-emptively solved, one
police officer
finds himself in the position of the murderer of a
man he’s never
met.

High Point

Snack time.

Low Point

The somewhat utopian apartment scene during the
closing monologue.
I’d say there’s still a few things that need to be
worked out to get
there.

The Scores

It’s hard to give a high originality score
to a chase movie
based on a short story. It is, however, more cynical
than your
average Hollywood action flick, using ideas that only
tend to get to
the screen when you’re adapting Philip K. Dick. I
give it 4 out of
6.

The effects were well blended with the film.
More
importantly, the effects were never the focus unto
themselves, instead
being used to serve the plot. This is the way
special effects should
be used, although many producers and directors seem
to forget that. I
give it 6 out of 6.

The story was well written. Certain twists
and turns seemed
well telegraphed, but I can’t be sure I’d have
spotted them if I
didn’t know that Dick wrote the source material. It
was very
entertaining, and well assembled, with only the
tacked on happiness as
an unmotivated and unexplained portion of the story.
I give it 5 out
of 6.

The acting from Tom Cruise was what Cruise
calls acting. I
couldn’t tell if I was watching John Anderton or
Ethan Hunt for most
of the film. Samantha Morton did some good work as
Agatha, but the
rest of the cast didn’t particularly impress me. I
give it 3 out of
6.

The emotional response was fairly strong. I
thought I knew
where the movie was going (and was right, for the
most part), but that
didn’t mean I wasn’t interested in watching it play
out. There were
some moments that were remarkably funny, even though
they shouldn’t
have been. (See the High Point.) I give it 5 out of
6.

The production was excellent. Steven
Spielberg, Janusz
Kaminski, Michael Kahn and John Williams all do
fantastic work alone,
and do better work when together. These guys have
been collaborating
for years, and with good reason. I give it 6 out of
6.

Overall, this is one of the better sci-fi
mystery films I’ve
seen. I give it 5 out of 6.

In total, Minority Report receives 34 out of
42.

4 replies on “Movie Review – “Minority Report””

  1. Theory
    There was this theory I saw first in a /. reply then later on some other message boards. Basically the theory holds that the movie REALLY ends when he goes to that mind prison(archive?). The jailer says something to the effect of “I hear all your dreams come true in there,” I’ve probably mangled that quote severely. Anyway, the theory is the rest of the movie after that point is John’s dream of what he wants to happen. There’s some supporting evidence for this, the biggest one being his wife having the ability to just go there and bust him out; yeah sure :P. Also, the monologue at the end seemed so out of place and wasn’t in the rest of the movie.

    • Re: Theory

      “I hear all your dreams come true in there,”

      I never thought of it that way. The ending always seemed a bit annoying to me, a bit too goody-goody compared with some ok dark stuff before hand. But that theory ceratinly seems more like a Philip K Dick style, is it or isn’t it, kinda ending.

  2. Alas
    Like most Dick fiction made into movies, and there are a fair amount of films (in addition to Minority Report, Blade Runner, Imposter, Paycheck, Screamers, Total Recall), ‘loosely based on’ is what it should say. Some people are more correct in saying ‘inspired by’, much like Running Man is fiction of the fiction written by Stephen King. I think Minority Report is an enjoyable film, but I am sick of taking the kernel of a Dick idea (or someone else’s) and completely changing the details. Hmmm. Maybe someone will try to film Dorsai!, speaking of Dick(son).

  3. read the source material…
    and it differs VERY significantly from the book. pretty early on. in the most basic aspects of the story. minority reports are common, known, etc. the don’t mean the same thing as they do in the movie. and the bad guy is very different, the motivations are different, and the ending is VERY different. however. I liked the movie better. that sounds odd coming from me…I almost ALWAYS like the source material better. but this one felt…I don’t know. it felt like Dick had a great idea and threw some pieces of plot around it to get it out onto paper. the movie was MUCH more engaging. and it had a lot of interesting side ideas thrown in for good measure. this is one where, good as dick can be, spielburg did it better.

Comments are closed.