| Overall Grade: |
A |
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| Story: |
A+ |
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| Acting: |
A |
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| Direction: |
A |
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| Visuals: |
A+ |
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Some of Spielberg's best work in a long time
by HeatherM (movies profile)
Dec 26, 2005
4
of
6 people found this review helpful
Minority Report is one of the best films of 2002 and ranks among the top five of Steven Spielberg's films. It's intriguing and interesting plotline based on a Philip K. Dick story is so original and well-crafted that sometimes I found myself wondering just where they came up with certain concepts of the film.
What suprised me the most about the film, before I do any explaining about the plot or any such things, is how many genres it took on. It was a scifi/ drama/ action/ acventure/ mystery/ crime/ thriller/ noir. Which, if you ask me, is a freakin' lot of genres.
The film centers around John Anderton (Tom Cruise), a detective for Washington DC's Precrime unit, which arrests murderer's before they even have the chance to commit their crimes. This is based on the Precognitives preminations of the crimes. They are transmuted to screens where the detectives can see them and then go out and bust the near-killers. There is a brilliant introduction to this in the opening five minutes of the film in which they arrest a man who was going to murder his adulturous wife right before he does it. Anderton joined Precrime when it first came out in 2048 (it's 2054 in the film), motivated by the disappereance of his son. But the plot runs deeper than that, with conspiracies and plot twists galore as John Anderton himself comes out as the intended killer and a man he doesn't know, one Leo Crow, as the victim.
So, he goes on the run, and it makes for one of the best thrillers I've seen in recent times. Spielberg has crafted a realistic protrayal of the future, where technology is high but not too high for us to imagine, where the world is still basically the same as it was except there are advancements such as spaceship-esque things, jetpacks, electric cars becoming normal, and eye-scanners among them.
The performances in this movie are especially good, in particular by Cruise as the man on the run with a tragic past, Samantha Morton as one of the Precogs, Colin Farrel as an annoying justice department official who may have set Adnerton up, and Max Von Sydow as a mentor/helper to Anderton. Or is he?
Everybody's role in this twisty story is constantly in question, and at the end, prepare to be surprised. No, it's not as shocking as Fight club, but it's pretty unexpected. There is a hint to it, but that's still not until close to the end.
Minority Report should be seen by all as an examination of characters, their fates, what desperate people will do, innocence, loss, guilt, and plot twists. |
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