Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Suspense
Review: This has to be my favorite suspense movie. I've never been head-over-heels for Tom Cruise but he really kicks [rear] in this action thriller. One of Spielburg's best, I highly recommend it.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent movie, great plot
Review: I loved this movie. I like action movies, but I also like thinking movies, this just combines the two so well. The only thing I must say though is that is should have ended when the wife figures it out. Spielberg did the same thing with A.I., he made a reat movie too long to accomodate his usual happy ending. I think that it would have been better to leave us hanging, that would have left the audience really thinking.
Rating:
Summary: Questions
Review: This is a very entertaining movie. However, I had a question in my mind when I walked out the cinema. Since the pre-cog could predict the future crime, why had she not predicted that Director Lamar Burgess would have killed Agent Ed Witwer?
Rating:
Summary: Where¿d the Momentum Go?
Review: For the first two-thirds of this movie I was happy enough. It wasn't perfect, but then, what is? The basic plot is the familiar one of a cop with an unhappy past forced to turn to the dark side and thereafter run around in circles. I enjoyed the sci-fi slant. The action sequences were rather obviously stuck in simply because the creators wanted to stick them in, but they were well done and added to the excitement, if not the story. There are gadgets. There are novel bits, some of them quite good. There are some nicely bizarre gory bits. The story felt 'human-sized'. I thought Colin Farrell was a hottie. I liked the greenhouse scene. I ate my popcorn and drank my soda and didn't look at my watch. Etcetera and so forth. With all that it has going for it, it becomes curiously dull. The entertaining aspect sputters and fizzles and the movie reveals itself as a chase story with gimmicks and plot holes. The issue of free-will versus predestination, which is supposed to be the big moral question here, is a non-issue with me; I assume we have free will. Tom Cruise was good, and I've liked him well enough in the past, but someone less polished and less Tom Cruise-y in the lead role might have added some flavor. It's most certainly not Blade Runner, and it's not noir. It's way too cookie-cutter for true noir, and grainy film does not noir make. Being a Steven Spielberg film, this isn't going to be some misunderstood sleeper that will give viewers the pleasure of discovering it on their own, and any moral questions it does raise are tidied up in time for the credits. Of course, being a Spielberg film also means it's not all that bad, and your taste for it will depend on your hunger for sci-fi. But it's been calculated for a gritty effect; unfortunately all the grittiness went into the effects and not the story.
Rating:
Summary: Truly Amazing
Review: This has to be one of the best thought out, best shot movies ever made. The plot twists keep on coming, and the acting is amazing. One of the best films I've seen EVER, definitly a top 10 possibly a top 5 movie. If it's not nominated for cinematography, directing, and best picture the acadamy should be going down.
Rating:
Summary: why Spielberg is a great movie artist
Review: "Minority Report" is the latest audacious triumph from America's premier filmmaker, Steven Spielberg. Unlike most successful directors, who are content to rest on their laurels and keep producing works of similar theme and content, Spielberg is not afraid to test the limits of his medium by producing works that are both spellbinding and visionary. He is even willing to risk alienating a mass audience unequipped or unwilling to come along with him on his journey of discovery (which partly explains the relative box office failure of his masterful "A.I." in 2001). It is ironic that Spielberg, who is often charged (falsely) will being largely responsible for the "dumbing down" of American movies over the past several decades, is now making more intelligent and adult-oriented films than virtually anyone working in Hollywood today. The theme of "Minority Report" is very similar to the one found in "A Clockwork Orange": just how far are we willing to go in trading away a person's civil rights in order to achieve a society devoid of the threat of crime and violence. In "Orange," the society of the future attempted to head criminality off at the pass by "reprogramming" potential criminals before they had the chance to actually commit the crimes. "Minority Report," based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, creates a future society that has managed to find a way to do virtually the same thing, only, in this case, scientists have enlisted the aid of genetic mutants who have the ability to witness murders before they happen and can then pass that information on to the authorities. Law enforcement now becomes a matter of apprehending and imprisoning criminals BEFORE they have even committed the crime. The problem arises when John Anderton, one of the "Pre-Crime" agency's top cops, is himself shown to be a future murderer. The plot of the film becomes, essentially, the classic chase story, in which an "innocent" man must elude his pursuers while at the same time unraveling the clues that will ultimately lead to his proving his innocence. From this material, writers Scott Frank and John Cohen have fleshed out an intricate and fascinating plot that keeps us guessing all the way to the film's finale. In many ways, though, it is not in the narrative details that "Minority Report"'s true greatness lies (after all, this story is basically a redo of this year's earlier, abysmal "Imposter," which, by the way, was also derived from a Dick story). It is the vision that Spielberg brings to the material that sets it apart. Rarely have we ever seen a future world brought so vividly and believably to life as it is here. Set in 2054, the film is a total visual masterpiece. Aided by astonishing production design, cinematography and special effects, Spielberg has created a universe unlike any we have seen before. One of his most triumphant moves is to not try and imagine the future in totally unfamiliar terms. Most of the clothes and furnishings seem strangely similar to what we have today. The effect of this is to help us identify with the characters in a way that might not have been possible had everything been made to seem alien and unrecognizable. What the filmmakers do emphasize in their vision of the future world is the constant barrage of audio/visual stimuli that come in the form of things like personalized holograms and animated periodicals which pinpoint just how close our own world is moving towards this sort of all-encompassing sensory overload. In a day and age in which even the most elaborate special effects can elicit a yawn from the audience, Spielberg still shows that he has the ability to dazzle us. There is a chase scene done on a vertical superhighway that far surpasses anything in this summer's "Spiderman" or "Attack of the Clones" for sheer breathtaking ingenuity and excitement. In fact, on the visual/special effects level alone, "Minority Report" makes those other two films look like first-year film school pikers. It's also impossible to convey just how extraordinarily brilliant cinematographer Janusz Kaminski's work is on this film. With his muted color scheme and emphasis on glowing whites, Kaminski brings a true otherworldly quality to Spielberg's vision. Like all great Spielberg films (and there are so many we can't even count them anymore), "Minority Report" packs a wallop both in the overwhelming intensity of its action sequences and in the quiet moments of subtle reflection where the filmmaker affords us glimpses into the workings of the human heart. The director is helped immeasurably in the first case by the brilliant editing of Michael Kahn, and in the second by the outstanding performance of Tom Cruise in the lead role. Cruise has rarely brought such dramatic intensity or such emotional depth to any character the way he does to John Anderton. The long delayed and long anticipated collaboration between one of the world's greatest directors and one of the world's most charismatic stars has resulted in a film worthy of both of their talents and reputations. In a time when filmmakers like George Lucas seem mired in the successes of their past, Spielberg continues to move ahead and to develop ever more as an artist. Even if he were to stop making movies today, Spielberg's oeuvre would put him in the pantheon of the world's greatest film artists of all time. But let us hope he will continue to make films for a very long time to come. We eagerly await all those future masterpieces.
Rating: 
Summary: The future is here, and it's mixed!
Review: Good premise, future precrime. Cruise does an admirable job. Speilberg borrowed some Stanley Kubrick cinema tricks here, including the eye removal scenes (Clockwork Orange), classical music as Cruise does the pre-crime search (Space 2001), etc etc. But Ending got a bit messy, instead of making the moral issues of pre-crime front and center, movie became more of a cat and mouse game, of whodunit. Speilberg could have made a BIG statement here, having set up the premise, and creating the wonderful set pieces, giving viewer a glimpse of the future, etc, etc. but unfortunately, he opted for a cat and mouse chase game Hitchcock style. In the end, movie was visually great, acting or story telling super until the story started to divert to mystery detective story which left the viewer short.
Rating:
Summary: Minority Report - Maximum Entertainment
Review: Imagine a film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, makes your head spin keeping up with the visual and narrative twists and turns, makes you jump out of your seat, and leaves you breathless at the end of it, and that's Minority Report. Far more than the action detective thriller it's billed as, MR is a story with depth, geninely unexpected moments, and one that'll stay in your head long after you've left the cinema. Brilliant!
Rating:
Summary: I predict you will like this film even before you see it...
Review: Steven Spielberg is back. That quintessential juggernaut of the summer solstice moviegoing season has blessed us with a cinematic journey which will capture the imaginations of any and all willing participants. Yes, as with hypnosis, you have to freely allow yourself to be put under seduction by the spell. It is supposable that there exists a multitudinous throng of cynical buffs out there who would easily dismiss the stunning and smart spectacle that the famous director- along with the celebrated Tom Cruise and the renowned conceptual mind of the late Philip K. Dick- produced; they would perhaps scoff at all the twisted premises and psyche-bending vagaries depicted on the reels, preferring to collectively label them as simplistic claptrap philosophy which can be purchased anywhere for a dime. Who knows, maybe such cynical pontifications bear merit from certain angles of the prism; but for those who want to enjoy a fun bullsession of conversation amongst the more celluloid-critical of cronies, MINORITY REPORT will serve as wistful, high-yield source material. Consider the profound question: if someone possessed within their souls a destiny of specific aberrant behavior, and if someone else knew about this fate and was able to prevent such behavior, is the perpetrator guilty? In this fantasy world of the future, a police force- headed by Cruise's character, John Anderton- has perfected a system whereby homicidal impulses can be sensed by mutant human beings known as Precogs; they receive dream images which are flashed on a screen and the names of both the victim and the criminal. The helter-skelter visual clues provided by the psychic personages are collated into a proactive scheme which neutralizes the threat. Thus, a murderer will never get the chance to murder. And the system is, as aforementioned, perfect. Right? Not necessarily. Anderton is suddenly fingered by the three Precogs who act in triangular unison to empathize with the future; they say he will commit the ultimate capital crime. He says they are wrong. Yet, he said the system was ideal, not subject to any standard deviations- he even put forth such argument with the hotshot from the attorney general's office. But he can't believe it, he cannot process such a dark premonition. Something must be screwed up...it must. Instead of simply giving himself in for arrest, he decides on a course of both fight and flight. Anderton becomes a fugitive, running wildly away from Pre-Crime police officers on jetpacks and their sick-sticks; he avoids their arachnid-like retinal-scanning robots; he visits the scientist who was responsible for the Precogs in the first place; and he drops down, down, down into the depths of the intricate matrix of mystery which somehow intertwines with his son whom he lost to the evil of abduction. The first thing one tends to notice about the film is its look; there is sort of a bleak, overcast whiteness to the frames, and it does well to convey the sterile practicality and isolationistic technology implied by such an advanced society. The second thing people might grasp upon is the movement of the camera; Spielberg employs some interesting, creative shots, as well as competent, utilitarian ones where appropriate, properly placing a fulcrum point of balance between the two...what you get is a touch of the avant garde in degrees accessible by the multiplex-frequenting masses. The multibillionaire auteur was really trying here, and his efforts should not- and will not, hopefully- go unnoticed. In terms of thespian matters, they were, on the whole, consistent and considered. Perhaps one narrow criticism could be levied at Cruise; he did not seem to communicate the minimum level of harried confusion necessitated by such a whirlpool of debacle. The movie clocks in at approximately two hours twenty-four minutes, which would arguably beg the question if any streamlining opportunities were present; nevertheless, one never felt as if the plot was being carried along by a sloth or a tortoise. But the big thing MINORITY REPORT inspires is a debate of the core issue at hand: what do you do with people who haven't committed a crime but would have done so? This is just a small bar of intellectual confectionary for you and your friends to digest after the viewing is over and you head to the latest hip java bar for hedonistic consumption of caffeine, right? Not necessarily; after all, there is an ethical fable at work here, especially when the mapping/sequencing of the human genome is examined. What happens when geneticists are able to figure out- or at least, think they have figured out- how to predict who is likely to be involved in criminal activity via a chromosomal analysis? Should such individuals be sequestered, quarantined? Can science ever be so targeted, so error-free? Although the thought of extrasensory crime prevention is probably relevant only to fantastic fiction, dogmas related to the DNA helix may evolve to metrics of ascension never imagined. MINORITY REPORT indeed provides good accompaniment for the ingestion of popcorn; but it does tax the mind at the same time (thankfully, the taxes it collects are ones you are happy to pay).
Rating:
Summary: A defining example of a fine American film
Review: The film opens 52 years from now in Washington, D.C. The world is much like it is today, with more people and more technological ways to solve crimes and more technological ways to commit crimes and to evade detection. The future follows the future trend where the liberties our founding fathers fought for are tossed out the window for the ultimate "ends justify the means" way of catching crime... using pre-cogs, three unfortunate souls who happen to have an uncanny knack for seeing a murder before it occurs. By tapping into the pre-cogs' brainwaves, detectives and future crime cops can locate the place a murder will occur and stop it before it happens. Even without the sci-fi elements, the classics from good movies are evident... love, loss, betrayal, loyalty, duty, angst and a pinch of humor. There's a touch of everything - drug use, violence, macabre, who-dunnits, etc. The sci-fi elements are subtle in many ways... eye candy (if you've seen this, pardon the pun) is not just thrown at the viewer to dull the senses or to distract the viewer from the true quality of the film. The world of the near future is much like it is today, just a bit more gadgetry and a little less freedom. Iris-scanners are EVERYWHERE, calling people by name in shopping malls, enticing them to buy, buy, buy. With the obvious advances in medical technology, there are still those who are mentally ill, still those who kidnap and molest children, still those who deal and do drugs, still those who are willing to murder, even though they know they will probably get caught. In a world where guns have been banished, people are still murdered by ye-olde methods... drowning, stabbing, strangulation, etc. The Metropolis-like scenes with modern cars that can quickly travel in any direction, even on a 90 degree highway, are a definite tribute to the classic films that Spielberg holds dear. Some scenes are predictable, some are not. Sometimes just when you think you know what is going to happen, it's something else entirely. After seeing the film, you can't help but run dozens of "what if" questions through your mind. The film is an experience - you feel it, and you sympathize with the characters and you even care what happens to them after the film is over. This may be Tom Cruise's finest performance and the entire cast deserves a standing ovation. Like a good book, the characters stay in your head and you tend to recount different experiences and relate to characters in a way that is all too rare in the majority of movies that get cranked out of Hollywood each year. Of the films I've seen this year, this is the only one in my Oscar pile this year. I'm already anticipating the port to DVD and behind the scenes footage, etc.
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