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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."
This guy has so many axes to grind that I think he forgot he was reviewing a movie halfway through.
And for those of you who aren't pretentious, my review is: good movie. The only baggage it has is that which you bring with you. One big "suspension of disbelief" hole and one big plot hole, but very enjoyable to watch.
Holes listed here, but since they're spoilers:
Spielberg is evil, if for no other reason than he leaves absolutely _NOTHING_ to the imagination. It was just a matter of time before he starting churningout vehicles for the scientologist's mascot tom cruise.
If you want an interesting scifi story, see THX1138.
Since atheism was as shocking in the 18th century as admitting that you're gay was in the 1950's, there's really no way of knowing who was atheist and who wasn't. I was atheist for years and was still forced to go to church and occasionally say grace at the dinner table. The French Revolution, which borrowed heavily from the American Revolution's example, was definitely atheistic.
Regardless of whether the founding fathers were atheistic or not, they made it clear that the government shall have no influence in the church or in any religion or lack thereof, or in any person's religious views,and that's what the parent comment was all about. The "under god" part forces children to make an affirmation that they believe in god, and this is offensive to atheists and to fundamentalist jews who believe that using the word in that context is taking god's name in vain.
As far as polytheistic religions go, how is a Hindu supposed to say under God when he believes in multitudes of deities, some who are rather jealous?
What about Bhuddists? Bhuddists may deify Buddah, but it's a bit different than the Judaeo-Christian deity, in that God is far too vaugue (or too specific if we're talking about Zen) a term.
What about Moslems? The first "pillar" (rite of passage) in Islam is to submit to Allah by saying, "There is no other god but Allah and Mohommad is his prophet." So if during the pledge, the word "God" is said in the proper form then it is showing a disrespect to Allah's proper name.
Congress approved it in the 1950's, when everyone was finger-pointing at "known communists". Communism is an atheistic form of government, and so by affirming the "under god" part you are reaffirming your lack of atheism, thus Communism loses in the elementary schools.
Well, communism has pretty much lost now so I think it's safe to declare it unconstitutional, which it is, no matter if atheists or theologians wrote the constitution.
Am I the only one with half a brain that wasn't totally dazzled by the mediocre CGI to realize this was a hugely lame movie, derivative of everything from Blade Runner and Gattica to 12 Monkeys and A Clockwork Orange. Not to mention that I HATED this movie the first time it ran and was called "A.I."!!
C'mon, it's the same underlying plot motivation as in A.I. with the search for the long lost person, and the stupid plots which are thrown in your face because they don't make sense. Why has Cruise's character singled out one case from many to research? Well, because in the end it turns out to be the key that unlocks everything - don't you know? No we don't know because we didn't walk into the theatre with the movie script in our hands you idiots... I hate it when movies can't come up with a convincing reason to take the plot in a particular direction and instead merely tell you, "This will be important later..." as if that would really happen in real life.
Let's talk about the horrible "sci-fi" in this sad-excuse-for-a-science-fiction piece of trash. I used to work for a company that manufactured retina scanning devices and I laughed the whole time Cruise carried around his old eyeballs in a ziplok bag and used them to get past various retinal scanning security devices. In reality, once the eyes have been removed, they wouldn't work in a retinal scanner - hence the usefulness of the technology (as opposed to fingerprints). Oh yea, and obviously in the future, when someone becomes a fugitive, ALL THEIR SECURITY CODES CONTINUE TO REMAIN IN EFFECT. This movie has more holes in it than Melissa Etheridge at a benefit for Swiss Cheese!!
Please, someone stop Spielberg before he makes another crappy movie and wastes my $7!!!
Minority Report was honestly the worst Spielberg movie ever-maybe that's because Tom Cruise is such a bad actor and ruins the whole story. If Spielberg didn't advertise products so much in the movie, it would have been better. What a waste of time and money it was.