Directed by Steven Spielberg
Starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Neal McDonough, Peter Stormare and Max von Sydow
Here we are, at long last. The final film of 30 Flicks with Lick. Another film that topped out Roger Ebert's end-of-year Best Films list (this time for 2002), a big-budget science fiction film from the most successful director of all time and starring probably the most famous actor in the world. Minority Report was a film that had enormous buzz at its release and was a massive hit. For whatever reason, it has faded into relative obscurity since then. I still remember the gargantuan pile of unsold DVDs at my local ShopKo, and wondering how a movie that did so well theatrically and had such a cool DVD could sit on the shelves and collect dust. I wanted to see the film then, but kept putting it off. And putting it off. And putting it off some more, until brainstorming a particular project designed to make me see films that I had never seen before finally made me stop putting it off.
Steven Spielberg is essentially the man who perfected modern film-making. He accomplished this to a point that you can also make a compelling case that he ruined cinema, by creating the blockbuster formula and drawing so much money with his films that an entire generation of studio executives would take his template and remove all the difficult steps that went into his movies, like character arcs and imagination, in favor of the action that the bigwigs believed was the draw. But it can't take away from just how adept this man was at connecting with audiences. Jaws is my favorite film of all time, a story that comes as close to perfection as a film can possibly get. From Indiana Jones to Jurassic Park, he's done it all. With Minority Report, Spielberg took a deep script from Jon Cohen and gave it his trademark Spielberg Glow (credit to Joe Bob Briggs for that term).
The film opens with the kind of opening sequence that Spielberg has perfected when it comes to grabbing your attention. Jaws began with Chrissy Watkins getting devoured in the water, Jurassic Park had the unnamed guard getting mauled by a raptor, Raiders had the sequence in a South American cave. Here, we pay witness to D.C. cop John Anderton (Cruise) going to his place of work and arresting a jealous husband before he can kill his wife. The scene is simultaneously a thrilling opening and an introduction to the ingenious premise that author Philip K. Dick laid out. In this future world of 2054, Anderton works for the "PreCrime" division. Utilizing three omniscient psychics, the powers-that-be are able to deduce murderers before they commit their murders and apprehend them. This leads to a lot of technobabble in the early goings of the film that comes dangerously close to going overboard but doesn't quite jump off.
The character of Anderton is reasonably well fleshed. He is given a tragic back story in the disappearance of his son and the breakup of his marriage, information given to us via a few holographic memories before the real plot of the film comes into motion. The psychics send forth their latest projection (in wooden ball form, no less) - a murder committed by Anderton. This news is greeted with great glee by Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell, back when it looked like he was just about to become Tom Cruise-level famous), smarmy DOJ agent who has a strong bias against the PreCrime program.
The concept of Minority Report is a home run, and the script makes genuine attempts to explore it. There are extended breaks where we gain additional background information on what led to the creation of PreCrime. First and foremost is a visit to the inventor of PreCrime. This sequence is similar to the early technospeak in that it almost grinds the movie to a screeching halt but ends just before it can. The scene serves a purpose, leading Anderton to abduct the most powerful of the three psychics (dubbed "Precogs" in the film) in an attempt to prove his innocence. There is also a long sidebar where Anderton visits one of his former arrests (Peter Stormare, who is always aces) who must give him an illegal eye transplant. I will admit that I do not understand why this guy helped Anderton out, since he spent time in prison and now makes his living as an ILLEGAL EYE SURGEON. Maybe there was something that I missed? Possibly.
I also haven't even talked about the fact that this is an action movie. Essentially, the film is a fugitive story, with Anderton on the run and evading his captors by any means necessary. The initial chase sequence through an empty warehouse (or something that looks remarkably like an empty warehouse) is great stuff, although it does show the first use of shakicam cinematography in a Spielberg film that I can place. We've crossed over into the 21st century, and it made me a little sad. However, the movie is much more restrained than the Rob Cohen and Michael Bay megadoom flicks and the films inspired by them that would eventually take over the action landscape. The camera work is kinetic, but it flows with the momentum of the events and doesn't, you know, give you goddamn sensory overload.
It goes without saying that the movie has a very heady theme, one that seems downright prophetic when we look at today's brave new world. The film was released not even a year after we got the Patriot Act, a piece of legislation granting the U.S. government frightening power to spy on its citizeny that was much reviled...but still passed overwhelmingly in Congress both initially and when it was up for extension in 2019. Over the past 18 months, we've seen many real-life unconstitutional measures being enacted in the name of safety. Finally, we have courts made up of private citizens on social media websites who determine what is and isn't appropriate speech/opinion. Many of these things can be interpreted from the film as contemporary versions of PreCrime. Folks, any sentence that starts with "I'm all for Freedom, but..." or "I'm all for free speech, but..." is one that you should immediately distrust. This film carries that as its central message. Safety is important, yes, but so is freedom and, more importantly, free will.
From an execution standpoint, the film is also strikingly done. A drak and gray color palette is utilized throughout, and while we get some amazing pieces of fictional CGI technology in this future world, there are also times where the future of 2054 looks remarkably like our own. It's an interesting juxtaposition, a symbol f how some things stay the same no matter how much the cosmetics may change. The acting is also almost uniformly great, especially by Cruise, who turns in his usual superstar performance in his first collaboration with Spielberg. I've never thought of the guy as a particularly great actor, but he knows how to pick projects that get the most out of his ability without stretching it too far. Here, he plays a guy who goes through a very real and personal redemption story, and he pulls it off perfectly. So +2 points to the guy here, along with his stunt double.
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