Rating: 
Summary: It came so close to being brilliant.
Review: Expectation was high. When you combine the amazing story by Phillip K Dick (Blade Runner), one of the worlds greatest directors Steven Spielberg and the one of the world's largest stars in Tom Cruise you'd imagine it would be a spectacle if nothing else. 'Minority Report' comes so very close to being an amazing modern sci-fi film, but unfortunately Spielberg's love for happy endings reigns supreme.'Minority Report' is set 50 years in the future. An almost utopian society in Washington DC. Murder is a concept of the past due to three beings whom are between living and dead, children of a corrupt world who see into the future; and more specifically murders. These are the pre-cogs and the center of the film. Tom Cruise plays John Anderton head of the pre-crime task force, whose job it is to arrest people before murders are committed. But everything goes wrong when the very system he supports turns on him and dictates that he will murder a man he has never met. The audience from here on is taken on a 163-minute roller coaster ride through some of the most amazing locales seen. The only thing the film can be likened to is 'Blade Runner' meets 'The Fugitive'. The film is very classy. Fine script, great acting, good characterization and cinematography to take your breath away. The art design of Washington CD in 2054 is simply breathtaking. There is no cliched futurism here. Everything depicted is purely possible. This is attributed to Spielberg talking to a number of leading futurists before undertaking the film. The little nuances of the film are what make it amazing. Not all special effects are visible; some so minute the microcosm the audience is taken into is real. The acting in the film is very good indeed. I for one have always been a fan of Tom Cruise and lately in 'Vanilla Sky' and 'Minority Report' it seems as if more attention to character is being imbued in his style. Anderton is flawed, a man who after losing his son has turned to Neroine, the hit drug of a 2050's world. Through this we understand his loss and empathize with the action onscreen. This works to great effect. The single problem with the film is its need for a happy ending. I am a great fan of Dick's short story and knew when the film should end, expecting the credits I exhaled and began to decompress; however the film kept going for another 30 minutes. This didn't ruin the film by any means, but it did make it feel slightly disjoined and the pacing suffered for it. The film falls into the film noir stylization up to a certain moment (which I will not mention for those who haven't yet seen 'Minority Report') the suddenly it turns a different way and we get almost a cliched ending, which was a little disappointing. Nevertheless amazing. 'Minority Report' needs to be seen for all fans of Spielberg to see his new direction in his, well, direction. This is a stylistic following of his film 'A.I' and while the films are very different both fall into the trap of having a happy ending. Nevertheless if you haven't yet seen 'Minority Report' there's no doubt you'll love it and if you have... see it again and leave at the right moment, half-hour before the end. I can't wait for the DVD. 4.5 Stars
Rating: 
Summary: My All Time Favorite Movie and You Have To See It!
Review: This movie was so cool. I wanted to see this so much but thought it could be just a little boring but I was really wrong it was a perfect movie. You really have to see this movie and if you don't you will be sorry. I saw this movie on the 2nd day but I am just writing a late review. I think it will be the best movie this and in the year and maybe even better than Austin Powers In Goldmember. You have to make this one of the movies you see this summer. So 2 thumbs up way up for this cool movie. I can't wait till this comes on DVD . I am going to get this on DVD for sure and nothing is going to stop me from getting this on DVD. This is better than any movie I saw even Back To The Future! So what are you waiting for see the movie that everybody is talking about which is Minority Report in theatres right now.
Rating:
Summary: A Tribute to Kubrick
Review: Minority Report (2002) I was bored during A.I. It was trite, overly sentimental and too long. What had originally been a Stanley Kubrick project had been sanitised and Spielberg-ised and any traces of the late master's hand were excised. With his new film, though, Spielberg has restored the Kubrick touch to great effect. Based on a short Philip K. Dick story, Minority Report is set in the year 2054. In the District of Columbia an experimental programme has been set up - the Department of PreCrime. Here, based on the predictions of three pre-cogs (genetically altered humans), police officers are, supposedly, able to detect crimes before they happen and prevent them. The (future) perpetrators are then arrested and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in suspended animation (encased in flotation tanks that look rather similar to those that enslave the human race in The Matrix). Tom Cruise plays Detective John Anderton, a PreCrime officer, whom the pre-cogs finger for a future crime, sparking off a train of events, in which Anderton flees his former colleagues both to escape arrest and to discover who it is he is meant to kill. Don't think about the philosophical implications of the film, which are two-fold. First, there is the notion that should someone be punished for a crime that they have not yet committed? Second, and much more complex, is the idea that the knowledge, and prevention of, crimes does not seem to change the future one iota. Where Jurassic Park touted the idea of chaos theory and that tampering with the past unalterably affects the future, Minority Report skips over the idea. We do not see how the 'victims' of prevented crimes are affected and how this can remake the whole world anew. Philosophical quibbles aside, the film is a good, old-fashioned sci-fi flick. It moves with pace, it's visually opulent, and a damn good story. In one superb shot, we are treated to a bird's-eye-view of the various apartments in a tower block, recalling the opening sequence of Delicatessen. Cruise, reprising similar roles in Eyes Wide Shut and Vanilla Sky, is very watchable and joined by an excellent Max Von Sydow. Like any good, modern sci-fi, its homages are numerous. The narrative structure resembles Logan's Run, even to the point of Anderton running off to discover and old-timer in an Eden-like idyll. The philosophical time-loop paradox is straight out of Terminator. The vision of the future and its skyscrapers are pure Metropolis and its copy Bladerunner, as is Anderton being both the subject and object of his investigation. The future dress code, particularly among females, of knee-high boots and short skirts reflects the vision of the future in Starship Troopers. And finally, the references would not be complete without the fashionable drugs, which keep Anderton sane, from Brave New World. This future is also very recognisable. While the cars, high-rises, and constantly-updating newspapers may not yet be with us, the Georgian housing of Georgetown is very much of our era. As is the overabundance of product placement from Gap to Guinness. The Kubrick touches come in both obvious and less obvious guises. When Anderton has his eyeballs removed in order to circumvent the ubiquitous retina scanners, it matches the infamous scene in A Clockwork Orange, when Alex is being treated for his sociopathic behaviour. While, the product placement recalls 2001.The less, visually, obvious Kubrick touch is the whole notion of a supposedly perfect system that can break down that drove such films as Dr. Strangelove, 2001 and Full Metal Jacket. Despite one or two sentimental moments, Minority Report is much darker than A.I. and hence a much more fitting tribute to Spielberg's former mentor.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring Report
Review: I expected something as asanine as this from Tom Cruise given his great taste in his choice of movies to act in , but Spielberg ?? What was he thinking ?? Given his excellent career , I guess 1 flop won't hurt him. Tom on the other hand is going to end up taking Nick Cage's rejects & that's saying alot.
Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking on Many Levels, but a Flawed Ending
Review: I'm hesitant to even say anything bad about this film. It's not very often we get true hardcore science fiction films here done with faithfulness, let alone ones that are executed in a revolutionary way. This film looks like nothing you've ever seen before. Using high-end film stock & lighting, the best in CGI, and special de-saturation of certain colors, the final result is a breathtaking and near seamless fusion of almost perfect technical moviemaking. This is a new milestone in what's possible. The only CGI that stood out was the one guy's missing eyes -- one of the sockets had that certain quality that the cafe owner's face in Attack of the Clones had. But that is honestly it. The processing of the film, in particular, has produced a look that is truly awesome! Philosophically, acting-wise, the story...everything was far beyond my expectations, except for the ending. Here's the problem: Spielberg's part of that Second Climax Club that loves to rebuild tension at the end. This is one of the common traits of a Hollywood-ish film, something Spielberg should have been careful to avoid. To make matters worse, he uses the clichéd "The Mentor is the Culprit" twist at the end. The length of dialog exposition required to even relay this information (done over micro cell phones that look like jogging earbuds) makes the final scenes even more sloppy and conventional. The film drags on just past a perfect end in the story, towards a more convoluted, less profound resolution. AI had a much more exaggerated case of this problem, albeit also in a far less masterful film. There were three possible solutions to this: (1) Have Cruise actually shoot the child killer; film over, no conspiracy. This would've been profound and artistically tragic. (2) Have Cruise bring the child killer in; no conspiracy, but he's proven that pre-crime is flawed. This would have satisfied Spielberg's desire to contradict predestination. (3) When I first heard of the film, I thought I knew how Spielberg would do it. Obviously I was wrong, but my original idea is probably the best. Since the precogs are hooked up to an imaging/victim-ID system and are themselves setting events in motions, then the big twist should have been that Agatha simply had a stray thought about Cruise committing a crime. At that same moment she presciently saw a possible sequence of events where predicting the murder thereby caused it; the images of the crime appear on screen & the balls are encoded, thus setting said events in motion. After all, she already knew what he looked like and that he was a pre-crime cop, and everyone has random, uncontrollable stray thoughts from time to time. It would be totally accidental and illustrative of the circular causality factor the human element introduces into the precognitive equation. This would have been the most taught, profound, and intellectually satisfying twist possible in such a film. Apparently I'm the only one who thought of it, though.
Rating:
Summary: Go see this movie!
Review: I absolutely hate Sci Fi movies and I had no desire to see this one, even thought Tom Cruise was in it. I am so glad I did. It os by far the best movie of the year so far. The special effects are incredible and worth the ticket price alone. Tom Cruise gives a compelling performance of a man predicted to commit murder. He must save himself and the man he is about to kill before the secret agents get to him. Mostly a cat and mouse thriller, but also an incredible intelligent drama with lots of excitement and thrills. The best part of the movie is Smanatha Mortons heartbraking precog who has the prediction. I hope the academy remembers her at Oscar time. This movie will draw you in from the get go and leave you wanting more. GO SEE THIS MOVIE!
Rating:
Summary: Twisted tale of time and the present effects of the future.
Review: This movie is an imaginative tale that looks at future crime prevention. It was cool seeing the story unfold due to the present knowledge of the future. By learning of the future, it sets the characters on a trail that leads them to the exact point that they saw in the past. Trippy stuff to think about. Very well directed and the cinematography was spectacular. a very cool movie
Rating:
Summary: A lot better than I expected
Review: I went into Minority Report expecting a futuristic action movie with not a lot of story behind it. And while the action sequences were there, this movie also delivered quite a bit more. Set in Washington DC in the year 2054, the story revolves around the newest genre of crime fighting- pre-crime. The process is simple, three pre-cogs (psychics) that are plugged into an elaborate machine see murders before they happen and detectives in the pre-crime unit use their visions to stop the murders before they occur. The system is flawless or so it would seem. With legislation looming on pre-crime going to a nationwide system, the futuristic version of the Internal Affairs is brought in to see if there are any problems with the system. The story really gets moving when the number one pre-crime detective, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is named as the next offender. The story revolves around his quest to see who is trying to set him up and shut the system down, and who is truly on his side. The story does take the road often traveled in one aspect. The question "If I know my future, am I able to change it?" is looked at in the same manner that "Back to the Future" and "Frequency" and a hundred other movies have in the past. This doesn't really take away from the movie but it did leave me with somewhat of a deja vu feeling at times. This movie delivered a couple of unexpected plot twists that move it into the upper echelon of movies, and still stuck to a story that wasn't at all confusing like Cruises' last movie "Vanilla Sky." The acting in this movie while good, wasn't not top notch. Tom Cruise pretty much dominated the screen time, not that that's the worst thing in the world. He continues to make movies entertaining without being a very versatile actor. There were a few notable minor players adding somewhat to the entertainment value of the picture. I personally liked the street surgeon (who also played the Russian astronaut in "Armageddon") and his assistant. The sporadic comedy throughout the movie seemed to keep the entire theatre entertained and one scene in particular made my stomach turn a little. (When you see the movie, you'll know what I'm talking about) The comedic bits were spread out quite a bit, which was nice for a change. Lately, it seems that a lot of serious movies are afraid to be good by themselves and use unnecessary comedy to get labelled as funny. For an example of this watch "Hannibal." The best part of this movie was by far the visual aspects of it. While several movies in the recent past look at the future as a "Jetsons" type setting with everything looking high tech, this movie does an outstanding job of mixing modern day with everyone's views of the future. In this movies look at the future; roads, grass, and even merry-go-rounds in the park, still exist. And while several of the shots were obviously computer generated, they didn't look like it with a few minor exceptions. The stupid airplane crash in "Air Force One" was 4,000 times worse than any shot in this movie. All in all, this movie will appeal to several different groups of people. For those who like movies that make you think, this movie will be entertaining. There are some decent action scenes for the "movies for guys who like movies" crowd. Although if you are a fan of pure action this movie may not be for you as there is a lot of dialogue and most of the action sequences were shown in the previews. And for suspense fans, this movie offers it's share of suspenseful moments with out the really overdramatic music custom made for horror movies. Tom Cruise fans will like it. Most Spielberg fans will enjoy it. And for everyone else, that's why we call them opinions. The Breakdown:
1. Plot-9 (Unique story-line for a futuristic story)
2. Characters-8 (Fairly simple characters with decent back stories)
3. Flow-9 (Surprisingly well paced for a 2 hr. and 20 minute movie)
4. Atmosphere-10 (Realistic look at the future, not overly done)
5. Cinematography-10 (Computer generated effects that didn't look computer generated-wow)
6. Entertainment Value-10 (Very interesting, start to finish)
7. Replay Value-8 (Worth watching again just for the effects)
8. Casting/Character Depth-9 (Everyone was well cast and the reasons for characters' actions were explained well)
9. Relevance to Genre-9 (Solid all around movie)
10. X-factors-9 (Seeing a futuristic city that hasn't completely been lost in neon was very refreshing for a change) 91/100
Rating:
Summary: Spielberg, Master of Films
Review: Whoever has to say that this film is bad and that Spielberg should retire, well they're just disrespectful little brats who couldn't tell yah the difference between E.T. and Saving Private Ryan. Bottom line is this, coming from a real filmmaker, a real film writer, and a real fan of real good movies, this almost tops them all. The story is by far the most intriguing ever done in a Spielberg film. It is an edge of your seat thriller with parts so well directed by Spielberg that it becomes hard to imagine if there is any movie that could possibly keep you this interested. The mall scene is a classic example of genius directing. The cinematography is ultimately incredible in this film by Kaminski, I especially like his lighting techniques to make the film really feel like it's in the future. The setting is great with tremendous heart-pounding action taking place within it. The visual effects don't come cheap in this movie at all. It tops all other visual effects in it's ability to not look computer generated but actually look real. It looks full and complete and it's because of tremendous shots set-up by Spielberg, Kaminski, and the ILM team that it looks real and believeable. I see the future exactly the way Spielberg does, and I love it, especially the cars and the new Lexus. Who cannot appreciate the work of the actors? Great acting w/ great humor in this film, just the way moviegoers want it, and Spielberg. The only thing missing in this film is a real explosive body-chilling John Williams theme. In this film, none of his music sticks out too boldly and you don't walk out wistling the tune as you would in Star Wars or Jurassic Park. But that just goes to show how great this film is, it doesn't need Williams music to get it over as a tremendous film. My suggestion, see the movie and appreciate it's tremendous film techniques. And show your respect for the man who has made history in films, Steven Spielberg.
Rating: 
Summary: Never Comes Together
Review: Like some of the other disappointed reviewers, I had high expectations of Minority Report going into the theater. Spielberg is given lots to work with. The concept of precrime has enormous potential, and I was interested in how Spielberg's vision of precrime could blow me away in the theaters. The concept is completely wasted. As mentioned in many earlier reviews, there are plot holes that wreck the film, and the movie leaves a critical viewer distressed.
It was a movie that actually got worse as I thought about it after leaving the theater, hoping to discover the plugs that fill in the plot's holes, I only realized that there were obvious logical impossibilities that can not be resolved. It is so frustrating to have a plot that is somewhat confusing, and upon further review, never actually comes together. Watching a movie like Pulp Fiction, 12 Monkeys or Memento, where events are seen out of order and pieced together until a full picture can be seen and appreciated, is far more satisfying than watching this film, in which events are seen out of order (through the Precogs) and pieced together to create a complete picture which could have never actually happened. Not only is the concept of precognition wasted. A significant suspension of disbelief is required to conceive of a futuristic world where murder can be prevented completely, but the most important female 'Precog' can be kidnapped by a wanted criminal from the friggin' police headquarters! Doesn't this frustrate anyone else? You never really appreciate why the real villain committed the actual crimes that seem superfluous to the original plotline of Cruise running from the police for a crime he has not yet committed. So many films involving non-sequential events or time travel create a fascinating illusion of reality that bends and twists into a wonderful and satisfying conclusion that is unlike anything that could have been anticipated.
The more I think about this movie, the more frustrated I am with Spielberg. It seems he blew what could have been a fantastic concept for a movie. Some of the effects are fun to watch, but you expect Spielberg to have had a much better handle on the plot.
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