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Minority Report
The resonance between this story and the current war is so strong that it's almost impossible to watch it for what it is, a good murder mystery conceived well before September 11th retelling a short story that was published long ago in 1956. The movie is half a work of philosophy and half a head-scratching what-if narrative exploring the merger of computers, extra-sensory perception, and genetic research. All of this is painted on the screen in the sad muted browns, sepias, blues and greys of an amateur watercolorist who can't keep the colors from turning to mud.
The conceit is the kind of classic conundrum that made science fiction great: the police in 2054 can tap the minds of three "pre-cogs" who see visions of murders a few hours before they will happen. Tom Cruise plays a cop who flies off in a jet pack to nab the soon-to-be-bad guys and lock them away before they kill. Can we really be sure the crime will be committed just as the pre-cognitives predict? Cruise is an earnest believer in the system's perfection until, it should be obvious, the system implicates him in the pre-murder of someone he's never met.
The yarn unfolds as a long string of chase scenes mixed with some flashbacks and some pre-cognitive dodges. Cruise's character, we're told, is a fast runner and he spends plenty of time running fast. The plot is crisp and layered enough to unfold several times. The hinge points are as good as the philosophical question they serve.
The biggest failure of the movie may be the set design and the look. At one moment, we see computers to inspire the next generation from Apple, in another moment we're in a mall that isn't as fancy or as new as the mall around the corner from my house. The logos for the Gap and Pepsi haven't changed since they were faxed over from the product-placement department. Many of the scenes look contemporary, with minimal set dressing, but then along comes a great car chase tricked out like the wet dream from some 19-year-old in an art school in Southern California. The unity of vision that delivered the oily dystopia of Bladerunner is missing this time. I wouldn't be surprised if someone tightened the budget screws in the middle of the film and sent them scrambling to save money on some scenes.
The tone coming from the actors is also a bit uneven. Spielberg managed to toss in funny moments in the Indiana Jones trilogy and whole schtick came together with the amazing certainty of comic-book escapism. The bits of humor in this movie's chase scenes, though, ruin the nervous paranoia and amped-up tension crackling through the narrative's ganglia. Is this supposed to be summer joy ride or a serious exploration of the meaning of justice?
These errors in execution don't matter too much because the storyline is so strong and central to our current struggle with terrorism. No one probably wants to hear that Dick wrote this story just a few years after the Supreme Court finally decided that it wasn't really legal to lock up Japanese-Americans on the off chance that they might take their orders from Tokyo. The movie theater where I saw the film is only a few miles from the prison that held much of Baltimore's City Council during the Civil War.
Despite the uncomfortable fact that moments like these happen again and again in history, there's no way to escape wondering whether Spielberg is some kind of pre-cog being who gets his version of the zeitgeist delivered early. The timing is just eerie.
Peter Wayner thinks his new book, Translucent Databases is about ten years ahead of its time. His book about steganography, Disappearing Cryptography , may be a few months late."
The biggest failure of the movie may be the set design and the look. At one moment, we see computers to inspire the next generation from Apple, in another moment we're in a mall that isn't as fancy or as new as the mall around the corner from my house.
I disagree. That's one of the strengths. It is ony 50 years in the future, and Spielberg uses a few advances to make it both close to home and alien.
To get all Darko Suvin on the matter for a moment (Suvin is an esteemed critic of and thinker about sf, read his stuff, it rocks), it is clear that the makers of this movie know what their novum (the "difference" that makes it sf) is, and they're sticking to it - precrime. Other lesser nova include the retina-scans and neuroin. What is very, very successfully done is their ability to focus on the important nova and their effects on society without getting too fancy with flying cars and moon malls and so forth.
What I'm trying to say at 4:48 pm after a long hot day is that the movie is a masterful example of putting an alien concept in a familiar context - for maximum effect on the viewer. A bonus is the gritty feel, and it was cute for me as a DC resident to see the future of the city (you know, we have Lexus plants _all over_ Capitol Hill).
Good movie. See it.
Karma: T-rexcellent.
The plot is crisp and layered enough to unfold several times
I'm sorry to disagree, but I found the plot clumsy, inefficient, and not particularly thrilling.
Assuming that there was anyone in the audience unfamiliar with the premise, was it necessary to set up the premise in at least four repetative sequences, any one of which would have done the job:
1. In the 15 minute opening arrest sequence.
2. In the 5 minute discussion following that sequence.
3. In the Robocop-like "Precrime" commercial.
4. AGAIN by the tour guide?
Technology was inconsistant in the film:
1. Why didn't they use the spiders in the opening sequence when they didn't know which house it was? In fact, why didn't they just run in and check all the houses instead of having 50 guys just stand there?
2. You think the computers were Steve Jobs inspired? I was SHOCKED that they were using a FLOPPY to move files from computer to computer.
3. What was up with waving your arms around like a conductor to move windows?!
4. What was up with that horrible 3d projections system in Tom Cruise's house? Why would anyone use that? It was like bad UHF reception.
5. "If you don't wait twelve hours... you'll go blind." Or... maybe six.
6. Whats up with a giant organ in the prison room?
7. Don't you think the spider technology would have showed up in lots of other places?
8. If the cops have those stun gun things, why would using bullets be standard issue?
9. Wouldn't the revelation of PSYCHICS have tremendous scientific reprocussions beyond precrime?
10. The ads, which were supposed to be annoying in the story... were annoying in ACTUALITY. Part of the reason I think is that I know that this wasn't tongue-in-cheek made up ads, but ACTUAL ADS from ACTUAL companies who were paying big time subsidies for this VERY REAL product placement. How ironic.
11. Did anyone else get the feeling that this future had about 50 people in it total? I did not feel like this was a "real" world at all.
12. There were just a lot of plain silly and inconsistant things. I did like the cereal box tho.
Action Scenes:
1. The Tom Cruise Plays Car Frogger scene was dull.
2. Were there any other action scenes? I suppose some chases... blah.
3. The action, billed as on the same level as Indian Jones....wasn't.
Characters:
1. Did Tom's drug addiction go anywhere? Did anyone even buy this character?
2. Haven't we seen the "I never said she drowned" "whoops!" about a million times?
3. "Surely by now the precogs have predicted you're going to kill me. So you're caught in a paradox.. bwahaha" How the hell did Tom know what they predicted? They could have predicted what enivitably happened.
4. The surgeon who replaces Tom's eyes gives a big speech about getting screwed over, then does....nothing bad. Fixes the eyes, leaves a nice sandwich.
5. Tom's coworkers at precrime have no problem whatsoever going after him.
6. The precogs were just plain silly.
7. As for Max von Sydow, don't even get me started.
Plot
1. Why did Tom's crime of passion get a full 36 hours of lead time when they had established that such crimes come at the last minute?
2. As the film was kinda winding down, I turned to my friend and predicted not only who the guy Tom was searching for was, but what choice Tom would have and what he would do. I was right, but never could have anticipated...
3. The extra 20 minutes or so following that, which like was totally unnecessary and cheesy.
4. What is the point of putting the precogs in a barn somewhere?
I still don't see why murders stopped by precogs NECESSARILY need to lead to arrests and prosecutions. I mean, say they had stopped the murder of passion at the top of the story-- rather than putting the dreaded headphones on the husband, couldn't they have gotten him into some family counceling? I mean, having a precog to stop a murder doesn't automatically mean you have to prosecute the pre-murderer.
With the 95% positive response on rottentomatoes.com I was expecting something really impressive.. But as time goes, I'm just left with... "well, that was kinda mediocre..." Certainly not at all thought provoking.
I think many critics are smokin' crack.
On one hand, he could murder the person for the good of society, and precrime would stay, and the world would be safe; but he would go to jail.
On the other hand, he could stay in his hotel room, not commit a murder, and prove that his system was a fake; they'd have to set everyone free and murders would start all over again.
How do we know that this person was part of Al Qaeda? Because the Bush administration says so?
If he isn't part of a foreign army, what recourse does he have?
This isn't an academic exercise. There are reports that a dozen or so Kuwaiti nationals, who were in Afghanistan doing Peace Corps-type work, are currently incarcerated in Camp X-Ray as suspected members of Al Qaeda. Diplomacy has thus far failed, and they can't even talk to a lawyer in order to clear their names.
Now, I agree in principle: if someone is a part of Al Qaeda, they should be locked up. Hell, as far as I'm concerned, they should be torn to pieces and thrown to the sharks. The tricky part is establishing who's actually in Al Qaeda and who isn't.
The thing about this that really stinks is that the Bush administration basically has carte blanche to lock up anyone they want, as an "enemy combatant." Who's to say they won't do this to particularly vocal political dissidents, such as antiwar or environmental activists, or militias?
Finding God in a Dog