Rating: 
Summary: Spielberg! You da man!
Review: This is a masterpiece, spielberg and cruise both meet at the top for this amazing thriller...this is a gift from the gods for film lovers, people who enjoy every little detail of the films which keep them living and breathing. wonderful
Rating: 
Summary: Run, Tom, Run!
Review: First off, why do people on this site rate movies they haven't even seen yet? "Oh it sounds like it probably will be good, so I give it five stars!" Makes no sense to me. Secondly, I did see Minority Report and give it a high recommendation. While it is more intelligently crafted than most Hollywood ... releases, it still tends to waiver in the land of "popcorn moviedom" and never reaches much further. There was more than one scene where the plotline seemed forced to go a certain direction just so the film could make it beyond feature length. Aside from the core idea of the story, the best part about this film was the excellent cinematography from Janusz Kiminski, if you care about that stuff. The acting was fine, with the most stirring performance coming from Samantha Morton who plays the precog Agatha. Cruise was just himself really, as well were all the leads. Nothing astounding. A LOT of product placement in this film from Pepsi to Nokia to The Gap and on and on. They tie it in with the storyline though so it does work, but be prepared to be knocked over the head with company logos. John William's music was a bit too device-ive, and most scenes could have done without any background music. But of course this is a Hollywood film so there must be a score to elevate the emotions of the characters! Pish posh, I say. Without getting into too much of the story, if you like inventive, original sci-fi, you will probably like this one. It's a great story from the creative mind of sci-fi master Philip K. Dick. All in all the film was entertaining and never boring...even during dialogue scenes where most theater-goers get up and go to the bathroom. So go ahead and see this film in a theater, but you can always rent the dvd around x-mas when they tie it in with Spielberg's next release. It is a business after all.
Rating:
Summary: One of Spielberg's Greatest
Review: I am a huge Spielberg fan and coud not wait to see this film. The previews had me hooked and I hoped it would be as great as it looked. When I saw it on opening day, I wasn't surprised that it was everything I expected. The action was hard core, the score was magnificent(well done John!), the acting was very believeable, the story is very interesting and futuristic, and my favorite-the visual effects were completely realistic and dazzling. If anyone out there is looking for a great film for the summer, choose Steven Spielberg's Minority Report.
Rating: 
Summary: Cruise and Spielberg do not know what they are doing.
Review: This was like A.I. all over again, only it some ways it was worse... The screenplay is so inconsistent... Too many twists and turns in the plot and the clues do not make sense. The CGI effects in this movie were so awful that I had to check twice to make sure that it really was ILM who did the effects work here. John Williams's music...what happened, it sounded so bland and frightening. This can not be the same man who scored STAR WARS. And I thought JAWS was Steven's most gory film, well here they broke a record in the gore and bad language department. This the fifth movie that I have seen made by Dreamworks and I can now say that they are way over-rated. This is the last time I see a movie with Cruise in the main part... Go back and see Star Wars and Spider-Man, they are the only good movies this summer. End.
Rating:
Summary: give me a break---a very big break
Review: This was the most boring movie experience since "A.I. artificial Intelligence"--where the girl next to me turned to her friend and said "Pointless". Don't get me wrong, this movie does have a point--but I'm really not interested in mulling over what exactly that point is. By the time the movie got to revealing the real bad guy I'd already scoped out the exit and was planning my getaway. I realize a bad review is gonna ruffle the feathers of the diehard Speilberg fans. But you know what, I am, and have been, one of his biggest fans since Jaws. I know a good movie when I see one. and this is not one of them. And to those of you who think this is one of the best movies you've ever seen, you need to see more movies. Movies that have plotlines that don't have obvious holes. I can't imagine someone like Spielberg actually read this and thought it would make a good movie. Too many of the afoementioned plot holes, bad acting, dull special effects (cars that drive up the side of buildings? come on!)--and didn't we see that same assembly line chase scene in Star Wars II (I think it was the same hand that got stuck as well)--not to mention the bad (over) acting by Cruise. And how many times have we seen the killer reveal himself by a (silly) slip of the tongue. Speilberg's gone to seed. The man probably sits up all night watching bad movies, chugging beer and when someething clever happens he steals it for his movies. There's nothing new here people--open your eyes. and speaking of eyes, when was the last time an eyeball bounced around like rubber ball--first of all, eyeballs aren't perfectly round, they would never bounce or roll more than an inch or so, also they would have nerve and muscle tissue attached to them that would make them even less ball-like and able to roll around anywhere, even down an incline--watching two "eyeballs" bounce and roll around like they did in this movie was almost insulting.
And don't get me started on the car assembly chase thing again. I guess I didn't realize that cars roll off the assembly line with a full tank of gas. And maybe a car in the future would be electric and have a battery pack but it just didn't work for me--this was saturday morning-kiddie cartoon stuff that was boring, and yes, pointless.
Rating:
Summary: Arguably the best Sci-fi film since BLADE RUNNER
Review: This is the most satisfying blockbuster film that I have seen in a long, long time. In my opinion, this is not just the best major release of the year so far, but the best film Steven Spielberg has made in a long time, and maybe ever. In my opininon, this is also the best Sci-fi film since BLADE RUNNER. It could have been even better, but the last twenty or so minutes of the film just aren't as outstanding as the rest of the film. It isn't that the ending is bad; it just doesn't stay at the exhilarating level of the rest of the film. There are just so many great things about this movie it is hard to focus on even a few. I'll try. First, the film is visually stunning. I don't know if the cinematographer used a filter to give the film a grainy texture or if they did something to the film in developing it (it was filmed in Technicolor using Panavision Lenses, so it was not filmed using digital), but the film has a washed out, grainy look that is just perfect. There is a lot of computer animation, and tons of special effects, but they never detract from the film, and always seem to enhance the story. The sets are great, and it provides the best vision of what the future might look like since BLADE RUNNER. Second, the imagined technological changes in the future are really compelling. The film shows everyone getting frequent eye scans, say by cameras over advertisements, which enable the ads to pitch their products directly to the person in question. Eye scanning plays a major role in the film, and leads to several of its best moments, both tense, scary scenes, and in funny, tension-breaking moments. There are some great shots with mechanical spiders that run through a building (one of the best sets I have seen in quite a while, with a lot of sky lights that allow you to view much of the action from overhead). One of the best moments in the film occurs when Tom Cruise is trying to avoid these spiders by immersing himself in a tub of ice. Third, while I know Tom Cruise is not popular with most guys (including me), he is very good in this one. I have to say, this has to be my favorite Tom Cruise flick, by far. Most of the actors were quite good. Spielberg has sometimes had problems in the past casting the best people for key roles, but that wasn't a problem at all in this film. Colin Farrell was very good as an operative for the US Attorney General, and most of the actors in the Pre-Crime division were very compelling. But the best person besides Cruise was, by far, Samantha Morton as Agatha, the most talented and important of the three Pre-Cognitives who anticipate the murders that will be committed in the future. She provides a very large number of the most intense moments in the film, and some chase scenes that take place with her are just incredible. There is one moment in particular when she stops what she is saying in a subdued voice suddently to scream "Run!" that is one of the best moments in the film (don't worry, you won't be able to anticipate when she yells it). The Swedish actor Peter Stomare (who played the insane murderer in FARGO, one of the "nihilists" in THE BIG LEBOWKSI, and the abusive husband in CHOLOLAT, among other roles) has an especially nice if small role as a shady surgeon. This film is so different from Spielberg's other films that if you didn't already know he was the director, you wouldn't be able to tell from watching it. It is bleak, metaphysical, inventive, exciting, provocative, philosophical, and entertaining. A good deal of this derives from the story by the always brilliant though consistently unpolished work of Philip K. Dick, who provides a moral and metaphysical complexity usually missing from Spielberg's universe. The only weak link in the film is when the film transitions from a metaphysical conundrum to a whodunit. Like I hinted above, it doesn't become a bad film; it just ceases to be one of the best films ever made. Had the ending been as strong as the rest of it, it might have laid claim to be the best Sci-fi film of all time.
Rating:
Summary: DEFINITELY DICK
Review: Philip K. Dick, that is. The same man that wrote the stories that "Total Recall", "Screamers", and "Blade Runner" were based off of. However, I'm afraid that whenever a Philip K. Dick short story hits the big screen quite a bit gets lost in the translation. "We Can Remember it for You Wholesale", the short story that became "Total Recall", is VERY different from "Total Recall." I haven't read the "Minority Report", but being a hardcore PKD fan, I can safely say that the movie is faithful in terms of 1)Technology: PKD almost ALWAYS had hovercars, slides, things that talked to you, conapts, etc. 2) Common elements: PKD was divorced 4 or 5 times so he often wrote about it, so it's no surprise that in the movie the main character and his wife are separated. PKD was also into drugs (which--I believe--is why he was able to write the weird stuff he did). In the movie, drugs are what create the precogs (psychics). Precogs are also a common thread in the works of PKD. THE BIGGEST MISTAKE you can make is in thinking that this is some action flick. Oh, you are so wrong. Yes, there is some action, but PKD was a man that liked to incorporate PHILOSOPHY and RELIGION into his stories. A PKD story was one that made little or no sense at the beginning and made perfect sense only at the end. If you don't like movies that make you THINK, steer clear of this one. The movie is two and a half hours long. The first apprehension of a criminal--who hasn't commited the crime yet--is superbly done. After that, the plot only gets more twisted and complicated, with bits of action scattered about. As for Steven Spielberg, well, it's not his best bit of directing, but it's certainly above average.
Rating:
Summary: He's Back, and Grown Up
Review: Spielberg is back. This movie is highly entertaining, brilliantly directed and loaded with really cool special effects that seem so natural. Somewhere, midway through this flick, it hit me. Spielberg has grown up. The maturity is reflected in how the story uses relationships between husband and wife, mentor and mentee, parent and child. While this is a darker story, without anything comparable to ET being bicycled across the rising full moon, (his Amblin Entertainment logo) it still gives one a feeling of the fullness of being human and then a little bit further. Between Philip Dick, the screenwriters, Scott Frank and Jon Cohen and Spielberg, this had been made into a gripping story (Who is Jon Cohen? IMDB lists only Minority Report as his credit. Nice start.) It could have been a bit shorter. There were a few moments when I caught my attention lagging, the hypnotic trance was losing its depth. But like a good meditator, I told myself, "Okay, just trust the process and go back to what you were doing." In this case, that was being deliciously entertained. Those extra moments occurred mostly while Spielberg was adding little touches that add heart to the movie, setting things up so the dessert at the end would be even better. Bob McKee, acclaimed screenwriting story expert, says that after you've seen a really good movie, there's no "coffee talk" nothing to discuss, because the movie's been completely satisfying. This movie left me satisfied, like only the best movies do. Not coffee, but maybe a cigarette, like you have after great sex. My faith in the master is back. I just wish Spielberg would write and direct more. There's magic in his touch.
Rating: 
Summary: Brought To You By¿
Review: Lexus, Bulgari, Pepsi, Revo, USA Today, Time Magazine, The Gap, and a host of others. The list I mention is a very short accounting of those companies that paid millions of dollars in endorsements to have their products appear in this film. Lexus clearly paid the most, for viewers have to sit through the assembly line production of a show car the company has been dragging around to the country's auto shows. The plot is one you have seen countless times, although this one has gaping holes and contradictions. Mr. Spielberg tries a bit of comic relief to get your mind from completely numbing during almost 2 and one half hours of banality with marvelous action sequences like Tom Cruise chasing eyeballs down a corridor. The nifty contraption the cops fly around in is an altered version of a famous starship from Star Wars called Slave I, and Spielberg borrows heavily from other tried, true, and repetitive sequences. I have come to believe that our hero/heroine must be caught on a production line, dodging robotic assembly machines to qualify for a science fiction flick. Sonic weapons also are the new weapons of choice whether you are in a, "galaxy far far away", or a silly version of Washington D.C. Industrial Light And Magic did the effects so the similarities are explained. The nifty arachnid robots were done not by ILM but two guys some software and a computer. Virtually the entire film is shot with a blue haze and washed out backgrounds. The science involved is a joke, as the heart and soul that predicts crimes writes the names on little balls of wood that spiral down the victim or perpetrator slide. I kid you not. Probably the most absurd portion of the film is the ending, for it contradicts all we have been told of the, "Precogs", throughout the film. The idea that retina scanning is the big brother of the future is primarily reduced to an advertising gimmick, and when eyeballs in Ziploc bags start getting used the, "science" sinks to new lows.
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg Strikes Again!
Review: One can never underestimate director Steven Spielberg's ability to reinvent himself as a filmmaker. MINORITY REPORT is just another example of this. Set in Washington D.C. circa 2053, MINORITY REPORT is based ona 1956 short story by Philip K. Dick, whose works provided the source material for the ultra-violent 1990 smash TOTAL RECALL and Ridley Scott's 1982 cult masterpiece BLADE RUNNER. Tom Cruise stars as the top cop of an elite anti-crime police unit called Pre-Crime, which has the ability, by way of three pre-cognitive beings, to see crimes of the future and stop not only the crimes but to stop the perpetrators from committing those crimes to begin with. But when a national referendum on Pre-Crime takes shape, an unscrupulous underling (Colin Farrell) to the Attorney General puts a flaw into the system intended to lead to Pre-Crime's own undoing. That flaw is a vision of Cruise himself committing murder against a man he doesn't even know and has never met. Cruise becomes a man on the run, and the result is a hair-raising series of suspense-laden twists and turns that never bores, despite the fact that the film is two hours and fifteen minutes long. Under Spielberg's always inventive direction, Cruise is sharp as the beleagured cop trying to get out of his most complicated fix. Samantha Morton is also quite good as the "pre-cog" known as Agatha, and the legendary Max von Sydow scores as Cruise's boss and mentor who has a stake in seeing Pre-Crime remain perfect. A film that deftly puts elements of the crime and psychological thriller film genres into its futuristic science fiction brew, MINORITY REPORT is a film that, like Spielberg's previous film A.I., may very well require more than one viewing; it certainly is not a leave-your-brains-at-the-door film. But it is well worth seeing!
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