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The world is a dangerous place for humans. We want civil rights. We want freedom. But freedom gives people room to do evil as well as good. And some people are willing to surrender their freedoms for the sake of safety, while others would rather live with the risks. Are we willing to let the government watch and catalogue our every move so that criminals can be easily caught after they commit a crime? Or how about before they commit the crime? On a global scale, do we have the right to spy on every move of other countries, just in case they might be building a bomb? And do we have a right to strike them with violent military force just because all evidence suggests they might attack us in the future?

These issues may never have been on the minds of Americans more than they are now. Thus it seems appropriate that the great storytellers of the age would address such questions. Phillip K. Dick addressed the problem of presumption in his short story Minority Report. And now Steven Spielberg has re-interpreted the story and underlined its questions in a way that is undeniably relevant to the present state of the union. The question is not so much "Can we truly anticipate evil?" so much as it is "Is any man wise enough, righteous enough, and blameless enough to wield such power properly? Who will hold them accountable?" Minority Report will unsettle you. It reminds us just how easily human error can be a monkeywrench in the machine of justice, and how any human invention created with good intentions can be used for evil. 

The story presents a possible future in which the police can learn about murders before they happen. Our hero is John Anderton (Tom Cruise), a policeman in the newly established "Pre-Crime" unit in Washington D.C.  Anderton has a reason for wanting to catch crooks. He lost his only son in an abduction, and after that his marriage crumbled. He is motivated ... perhaps too motivated ... to catch crooks before they strike. 

The "Pre-Crime" program works like this: a special trio of psychics, called "pre-cogs", foresee crimes. These gifted individuals, two twin brothers and a sister, float in a special pool in a chamber called "the Temple" where they remain in a state of half-consciousness, subject to visions of the future. They are manipulated so that they only see visions of murder, like round-the-clock operators at 9-1-1. Then they report their visions, which are transmitted like closed-circuit television to the special agents. The agents seek to identify and apprehend the criminal based on visual clues in the visions. When they're sure about the killer-to-be's identity, they grab their guns and go. As a result, crime in the D.C. area has dropped 90%.

The system seems perfect. But it has its opponents. Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) arrives to do an investigation, and meets Anderton's in a fierce debate. The system, he argues, is a human construct, and thus it is flawed. How can the law can be sure they aren't misinterpreting the pre-cog evidence? What if the future can be changed? Can a killer be envisioned by pre-cogs and then change his mind? If so, is man truly free? 

Anderton learns this the hard way when, during an investigation of a future crime, he sees prophetic imagery that places him in the shoes of the killer. How could he be capable of murder? Especially when the alleged victim is someone he's never met? He panics. And thus the film's tag-line: "Everybody runs." At this point, the film becomes a futuristic version of The Fugitive, with Anderton as the innocent (or is he?) runner, while Witwer plays the Tommy Lee Jones part as his pursuer. Following flawed logic, the cops close in.. 

Anderton knows that the authorities--his co-workers--trust the system. They will arrest and dispose of him without discovering that he has been set up. That is, if he has indeed been set up. He sets out to find someone who can help him out how a pre-cog's vision might have been fabricated. In desperation, he goes to extremes to conceal his identity. After all, how does someone go undercover when technology can scan his retinas and identify him everywhere he goes? There's an obvious answer to that, but you might not want to think about it, especially if you're eating. 

Anderton's desperate flight will make you think about current cultural trends in technology, security, and advertising. the futuristic inventions are very believable and yet so clever and boutious that they become almost too distracting. Advertising follows Anderton everywhere he goes in D.C., and because sensors can identify him easily, each audio commercial appeals to his attention by calling out his name. (How free will Americans truly be when they can't go anywhere without being pursued by the Information Age's all-knowing sale representative?)

The Washington D.C. of Minority Report is the most imaginative future environment ever developed for a film. This is not Blade Runner's bleak, dark world, the skyscraper-crowded metropolis, the claustrophobic's nightmare. This is a spacious, open world dominated by technology and information, one that seems far more possible.  It's a recognizable Washington D.C., with spiffy sci-fi cars that suggest this is the same future in which Spielberg's A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) took place. There are also echoes of another futuristic epic: Robert Zemeckis's clever, underrated Back to the Future 2. And there are several clues that he spent time with Wim Wenders' great sci-fi excursion Until the End of the World. (For instance, Max Von Sydow played a philosopher who develops innovative technology that records mental imagery, and he does the same thing in this film. In both films, his inventions will lead to terrible, unforeseen consequences.)

Presumed guilty because of imagery and assumptions, Anderton's hopes of surviving this future look extremely grim. His salvation ultimately rests with the "pre-cogs" themselves, who have seen the visions. One in particular, Agatha, (Samantha Morton) is sorely taxed for information by her superiors. Her gifts and her brain are regularly abused for the sake of science. All great films have echoes of truth, and Agatha echoes the torments of Christ, a persecuted savior who is tormented daily for the sins of the world. She makes a powerful, painful illustration of how humankind is all too willing to take advantage of one person's gifts for the benefit of many. Her example had me thinking about the ethics of slave labor, abortion, and stem-cell research. 

Anderton echoes Christ-likeness as well. He is tempted to betray justice. His journey leads him from the heights of power to the fear-driven lives of the common people, where he suffers, surrenders his body to torments, and eventually visits a sort of hell where he is seen illuminated by a halo. And the savior imagery doesn't stop there.

Spielberg's love for portraying women as the source of all love and goodness continues. Women have never been celebrated and revered so much in his films. Agatha is like a prophet of God in this film or a guardian angel captured and enslaved by men. The visionary woman who invented "Pre-Crime" is troubled that men have taken her idea and twisted it. And Anderton's wife has a soft heart that will make her a key player. And, as always, the father figure in the film is cold and distant.

It's remarkable that, with all of the visual busy-ness, the relevant social commentary, and so many complicated plot details, Spielberg actually delivers engaging, fully-developed characters along the way. It helps that he has a talented cast at the top of their game.

As Anderton, Tom Cruise gets to do the things he does best. He runs. He gets emotional and yells. He looks sharp. And then he employs his latest favorite tack-- Knowing that everyone thinks he looks great, he makes us wince by putting that movie-star face through all kinds of torment. In Interview with the Vampire he often hid his bloodstained face in the shadows. In Eyes Wide Shut he concealed it behind a mask during scenes when his character was trapped in a nightmare. In Vanilla Sky his face melted and he ended up hiding it with another, rather grotesque mask. This time, he seems determined to destroy his face, and he does so in ways almost too painful to mention (so I won't.) Yet, his performance is remarkably focused and intense--it blends the maturity and depth of Eyes Wide Shut with the sincere emotion of Jerry Maguire and the action-hero bravado of the Mission: Impossible films. You can tell he's giving everything he's got, as though he's been saving it for Spielberg all along. 

The other actors get to play on their strengths too. Newcomer Colin Farrell gets to be an intense, cocky, clever rogue. Max Von Sydow plays an Authoritative Great Mind, as always. Tim Blake Nelson (O Brother Where Art Thou?) provides us with his specialty: a quirky, thick-headed goof. And another Coen Brothers' veteran, Peter Stormare, tops himself with the most memorable and hilarious performance of his career.

Nevertheless, the movie belongs to Samantha Morton. Morton is making a career playing freakish oddballs: a mute in Sweet and Lowdown, a wild junkie in Jesus' Son, and now a bald, wide-eyed, spasmodic "pre-cog". Morton's scenes with Cruise are affectingly intimate and visceral. They make a memorable couple--two desperate and deeply wounded individuals who must try to trust each other while rushing to what seems an unavoidable disaster. Even though she spends half the film submerged in a pool, she becomes Minority Report's  emotional center, earning our sympathies and our respect. The Academy will probably sit up and notice.

But Spielberg himself is the biggest surprise. Who would have thought that the man who sank into sentimentalism and produced Hook was capable of this? At times I was almost sure another director had taken over... Lars Von Trier, perhaps? Even as his strengths flourish throughout the film, Spielberg is clearly pushing himself to try new things, and many of them work marvelously. There is a scene in which Cruise reluctantly turns himself over to the devices of a dangerous doctor (Stormare) that becomes the most bizarre and uncomfortably funny scene in Spielberg's whole repertoire. This scene also makes a more memorable nod to Stanley Kubrick than anything in A.I. (Cruise, who starred in Eyes Wide Shut,  references another Kubrick film in a scene that could only be titled Eyes Pried Open.) 

And yet, it makes complete sense that he chose this project. Movie-length chases are not new territory for Spielberg--his first film Duel was about a desperate man who doesn't know why a large trailer truck is pursuing him on the freeway. The same sense of desperation pervades this film. I suspect it will also dominate the upcoming true-life cops-and-robbers flick Catch Me If You Can, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which Spielberg will deliver in a few months. Even though this is his favorite M.O., you can see just how much this director has grown as a thinker, visionary, and artist. There is so much to think about, so much to look at, you'll be groping for the remote control and the "pause" button. Spielberg knows that his movies will be studied for generations to come on DVD, so he makes sure every sequence has layer upon layer of visual  wonders and metaphoric significance. 

Minority Report is a unique action movie because, while the action sequences range from routine (the factory chase) to spectacular (the brawl in the alley), it is the human interaction that takes pace between Anderton's breathless marathons that compels and enthralls. Nothing more clearly highlights Spielberg's artistic superiority over good buddy George Lucas over the years. While George has become preoccupied with technology ... a valuable and pioneering effort not to be discounted ... he still doesn't know the difference between an actor and an action figure. Spielberg has focused on improving himself in all of the avenues of effective cinematic storytelling. As a result, Minority Report is Spielberg's visual masterpiece. It is also his funniest movie, thanks to a relentlessly witty script by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen. If Spielberg can work with writers who can blend action and drama as effectively when he makes Indiana Jones 4, we may have the first Jones sequel to rival the original Raiders. 

But there is still plenty of room for Spielberg to grow. Through it all, you can feel his three personalities wrestling: Spielberg the Entertainer supplies the adrenalin rush. Spielberg the Artist wants to raise important, challenging questions, trusting the audience think for themselves. But Spielberg the Communicator wins in the end, over-explaining the murder mystery's complicated resolution. Just as Tim Burton slowed down and spoiled his visionary Sleepy Hollow with an insulting, point-by-point confession by the guilty party, Minority Report loses its momentum like a freight-train going off the tracks. It nearly falls apart. All of this... why? Just so the slowest member of the audience doesn't leave confused? This leaves me feeling a bit unsatisfied and even insulted. Half of the fun of a good detective yarn is sitting there figuring out whodunnit and how they dunnit.. 

That is what separates Minority Report from that other landmark movie based on a Phillip K. Dick novel ... Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. As if in acknowledgement of the connection, Spielberg begins his film almost identically: with a deeply resonant bass note and the title of the film against a black screen. Blade Runner is one of the most artful, most soul-searching, most fully realized sci-fi films for grownups ever made. It raises questions about freewill, revenge, human arrogance, technology, justice, mercy, and God. And it lets us answer them. We're left wondering about the capability of an android to learn about mercy. And we're left wondering about the identity of the hero. But Spielberg isn't comfortable with such open-endedness. Thus, _Minority Report_ is the lesser work. It gives us big roomy ideas as important as _Blade Runner's_, but then overcrowds them with talk and self-explanation. 

Still, these false notes do not ruin the symphony. 

Spielberg has turned in one of his most ambitious and memorable films: at once a philosophical exploration, an explosive action adventure, and a landmark fusion of great acting, great cinematography, strong writing, and eye-popping design. It's his most exhilarating work since Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Jeffrey Overstreet 6/23/2002
 

Cutting the crime rate down to practically nothing would seem to make for a rosy future. The premise of futuristic Minority Report is Washington, D.C.’s experimental "pre-cog" program, run by lead police officer Tom Cruise. The film is directed by Steven Spielberg, so expect a John Williams score, costumes by Deborah L. Scott and photography by Janusz Kaminski. What a team.

In this futuristic society of 2054, a low crime rate has been in existence for several years. Three "pre cognizant" people lie in a half-twilight tank of fluid and dream their lives away. They dream of murder. The job of the police is to tackle the so-called murderers before the crime occurs, thus saving potential victims by altering the future, and playing God.

The opening scene shows what happens when the police arrive at the scene with about three seconds to spare. The hapless killer-to-be is crowned with a wire cap and stuck into a vacuum tube somewhere in the nether regions. The capping reminds me of the Tripod science fiction series while the nether regions look suspiciously like a Matrix reject. Eventually, Cruise is accused of being a potential murderer and must prove his innocence against the system with the help of a mad doctor (an over-the-top Peter Stormare) who replaces Cruise's eyes. If that kind of thing turns you off, bring a hankie to cover your own eyes. Kathryn Morris is Cruise's estranged wife. They divorced when their young son was declared missing while in Tom's care, an unsolved crime. Samantha Morton is the only "pre-cog" who shows signs of life and wants to help Cruise. Science has given man the ability to see into the future something only God should have. The program is about to go nationwide, but the future cost to humanity is not seen clearly by its developers.

Cruise is in fine fettle here, teeth and all, and gets battered but still comes up for more. The only chance we really have to see him act is when he is thinking about what a future he could have had with his son. The rest of the time he is running from someone or to someone. Max von Sydow is a fine choice for the head director with more on his mind than science. Colin Farrell is so eager for Cruise's job that his habit of chewing gum is like lip smacking. Kathryn Morris has the thankless job of being Cruise's wife, appearing on screen for the first time halfway through the film. Tim Blake Nelson as the caretaker for the "pre-cogs" is a combination warped personality and nursemaid to pets. It is Samantha Morton, though, who holds the film together. You can believe that she actually is looking into the future. With her shaved head and luminous eyes she takes the audience on a ride where they don't want to go. The horror of the film is not so much the potential criminals held in stasis, but the "pre-cog's" who dream of murders past and present over and over and over.

Minority Report does have flaws. Peter Stormare's portrayal of a mad doctor leads you to believe he would wreck mayhem, but he disappears. Cruise is told not to remove the eye bandages for 24 hours (and this is a harrowing scene), yet he is chased by the police with a light in his eyes and can see through the rest of the film. Cruise's real eyeballs keep re-appearing throughout the film and this is eye-catching (sorry, couldn't resist.) It is never explained why Cruise's son was singled out of a crowd of kids by a kidnapper.

Minority Report is photographed in a washed-out color that is beginning to mean to audiences: pay attention, we are in the future. Some of the special effects are stunning including a car chase that runs down the side of a building, the cops chasing Cruise in a auto assembly plant (watch how he gets a car), and Cruise trying to escape the cops in an alley. This is Spielberg at work with a wry sense of humor as though to say, "Don't believe a word of it, just enjoy." 

Thinking about grabbing that last piece of cake? Someone might be watching.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner 6/23/2002