I could be in the minority
Jul. 12th, 2002 09:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tvordljMovie Review: Minority Report
Right then. I went to see Minority Report this afternoon on the recommendation of a good friend. Let me say right here and now that i'm not a Tom Cruise fan, i find most of his movies ok to good in spite of his presence. He's adequate but could be replaced by any number of other actors and the roles would be equally good. Having said that he's adequate in this one too. He's a bit on the intense side like he's trying to be a hard nosed veteran cop but just comes across like a hard nosed arrogant wanker. At least he resisted the urge to play his character, Sargeant John Anderton as a cocky "Top Gun" kind of whiz kid cop. He's still the kind of guy you wouldnt' really want to work for, though.
The premise of the movie is futuristic, psychological sci fi. Foreseeing crimes, usually murders, before they happen and arresting the perpetrator before they actually commit the crime. The perpetrator's fate is rather gruesome in a non-bloody way but still managed to raise an eyebrow in the end. Not really sure if they took liberties or not. This is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the same guy that wrote the story behind Blade Runner, one of my favourites, and Total Recall. (Thanks Chris, i didn't know that one) The predicting of the crimes comes from the drugged and controlled minds of three "Pre-cogs", cognizants. They were the children of an early impure version of a street drug which has now been refined and is the drug of choice including John Anderton on occaision. The Pre-cogs, twin males and a female, "dream" the murders which are projected onto screens above them that they get to watch, not only in their minds but before their eyes, sometimes over and over as "echos". But are they? They are treated as things, machines by everyone, even their sympathetic "keeper" who has a somewhat twisted relationship with them.
The movie opens by showing them predicting a murder and John and his team figuring out from the recorded visuals who and where along with the race to get to the scene before the murder takes place. They're good at their jobs, there hasn't been a murder in 6 years in Washington D.C. since this pilot project began. It's about to go national and more than a few people have a stake in it's success. Then the twist. The pre-cogs see a murder, a premeditated murder which has become a rarity, and the murderer is John himself! The victim is a man he doesn't know and he goes on the run to try to figure out who the man is and why he'd want to kill him. He seems inexorably sucked in to the future he's trying to prevent which almost seems to be the moral of the story, you can't change your own future even though you know what it will be. Is choice really taken away from us after all? Maybe. Maybe not.
The special effects are not too bad. Steven Spielberg is the director with all of his magic at his fingertips. Some of it is used to good effect and some of it definitely rubbed me the wrong way but at least i didn't feel like i was watching a Playstation game on the screen. Most of the time. The jet pack chase scene was a bit annoying. It almost looked computer generated at times but yet i think it was more the way it was shot and edited, sped up a bit as well. Seemed kind of choppy to me. That was the only thing i thought sucked. The spiders scenes were neat though. Other computer uses were plants and a hedge with built in self defences and of course the computers they use to view and solve the crimes. And as it was pointed out to me, Steven Spielberg can't help but insert a bit of ... well it was described to me as cheap attempts at humour. I think it was more his traditional "human touch" approach. But it doesn't really work.
The ending is pure Spielburg but it seemed a bit redundant in some ways. You know, "what happened to ...... " You can pretty much figure out what happens to John Anderton and what happened to the Pre-cogs seemed to be at odds with what we were told was wrong with them in the first place. There was another small contradiction too but I won't spoil it though because maybe that's just me. One plot twist i really thought i had figured out long before they focused on it (who the intended victim of Anderton's crime was in relation to him) but they pulled out a nice twist, one of several but none of which totally surprised me. Still i did enjoy the movie and would say it's worth going to see.
Can't say the acting was overly award winning and the editing was quick and choppy at times. The visions the Pre-Cogs see seem to be woozy, with glaring light distorting the edges and silhouettes but the whole movie was shot with the same thing, like there were sun flares on the lenses.... all the time! The only scene that as contrasting, was the climax, shot in almost total darkness with just a bit of light filtering out enough to surround the characters it involved in a bit of a halo but not that harsh lighting like the whole thing was under over charged spotlights. It made the whole look of the film surreal, like it was just as much of a dream as what the pre-cogs "see".
I think i'd rate it a 6.5 maybe a 7 overall. But it would also be worth just waiting for the video.
Right then. I went to see Minority Report this afternoon on the recommendation of a good friend. Let me say right here and now that i'm not a Tom Cruise fan, i find most of his movies ok to good in spite of his presence. He's adequate but could be replaced by any number of other actors and the roles would be equally good. Having said that he's adequate in this one too. He's a bit on the intense side like he's trying to be a hard nosed veteran cop but just comes across like a hard nosed arrogant wanker. At least he resisted the urge to play his character, Sargeant John Anderton as a cocky "Top Gun" kind of whiz kid cop. He's still the kind of guy you wouldnt' really want to work for, though.
The premise of the movie is futuristic, psychological sci fi. Foreseeing crimes, usually murders, before they happen and arresting the perpetrator before they actually commit the crime. The perpetrator's fate is rather gruesome in a non-bloody way but still managed to raise an eyebrow in the end. Not really sure if they took liberties or not. This is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, the same guy that wrote the story behind Blade Runner, one of my favourites, and Total Recall. (Thanks Chris, i didn't know that one) The predicting of the crimes comes from the drugged and controlled minds of three "Pre-cogs", cognizants. They were the children of an early impure version of a street drug which has now been refined and is the drug of choice including John Anderton on occaision. The Pre-cogs, twin males and a female, "dream" the murders which are projected onto screens above them that they get to watch, not only in their minds but before their eyes, sometimes over and over as "echos". But are they? They are treated as things, machines by everyone, even their sympathetic "keeper" who has a somewhat twisted relationship with them.
The movie opens by showing them predicting a murder and John and his team figuring out from the recorded visuals who and where along with the race to get to the scene before the murder takes place. They're good at their jobs, there hasn't been a murder in 6 years in Washington D.C. since this pilot project began. It's about to go national and more than a few people have a stake in it's success. Then the twist. The pre-cogs see a murder, a premeditated murder which has become a rarity, and the murderer is John himself! The victim is a man he doesn't know and he goes on the run to try to figure out who the man is and why he'd want to kill him. He seems inexorably sucked in to the future he's trying to prevent which almost seems to be the moral of the story, you can't change your own future even though you know what it will be. Is choice really taken away from us after all? Maybe. Maybe not.
The special effects are not too bad. Steven Spielberg is the director with all of his magic at his fingertips. Some of it is used to good effect and some of it definitely rubbed me the wrong way but at least i didn't feel like i was watching a Playstation game on the screen. Most of the time. The jet pack chase scene was a bit annoying. It almost looked computer generated at times but yet i think it was more the way it was shot and edited, sped up a bit as well. Seemed kind of choppy to me. That was the only thing i thought sucked. The spiders scenes were neat though. Other computer uses were plants and a hedge with built in self defences and of course the computers they use to view and solve the crimes. And as it was pointed out to me, Steven Spielberg can't help but insert a bit of ... well it was described to me as cheap attempts at humour. I think it was more his traditional "human touch" approach. But it doesn't really work.
The ending is pure Spielburg but it seemed a bit redundant in some ways. You know, "what happened to ...... " You can pretty much figure out what happens to John Anderton and what happened to the Pre-cogs seemed to be at odds with what we were told was wrong with them in the first place. There was another small contradiction too but I won't spoil it though because maybe that's just me. One plot twist i really thought i had figured out long before they focused on it (who the intended victim of Anderton's crime was in relation to him) but they pulled out a nice twist, one of several but none of which totally surprised me. Still i did enjoy the movie and would say it's worth going to see.
Can't say the acting was overly award winning and the editing was quick and choppy at times. The visions the Pre-Cogs see seem to be woozy, with glaring light distorting the edges and silhouettes but the whole movie was shot with the same thing, like there were sun flares on the lenses.... all the time! The only scene that as contrasting, was the climax, shot in almost total darkness with just a bit of light filtering out enough to surround the characters it involved in a bit of a halo but not that harsh lighting like the whole thing was under over charged spotlights. It made the whole look of the film surreal, like it was just as much of a dream as what the pre-cogs "see".
I think i'd rate it a 6.5 maybe a 7 overall. But it would also be worth just waiting for the video.
