Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.
Minority Report is a sci-fi action thriller starring Tom Cruise, directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on a story by Philip K Dick. The combination works rather well in this case, though it’s not a sci-fi classic.
John Anderton works at the Department of Pre-Crime. This uses the precognitive powers of three individuals who can see into the future, though only a very specific type of future event – murder. With the help of the pre-crime department, actual murders in that state have dwindled to zero. Anderton and his team have the job of arresting those who are about to commit the crime – and making sure that they make the arrest before the crime happens. Crimes of passion are the only ones they get now as everyone knows their premeditated murders will be seen, the “precogs” as they are known only have a very short prediction timeframe when it comes to affairs of the heart. The system seems to be working perfectly, and the system is planned to go nation-wide. The system seems perfect, and Anderton absolutely believes in it. Until, that is, it implicates him for a murder… the murder of someone he doesn’t even recognise…
As Anderton races against time to clear his name and find out who the stranger is who he is apparently going to kill, he discovers a flaw in the precog system – known as a “Minority Report”. This leads him to discover something that puts the whole system into question, and reveals disturbing truths about the precogs themselves.
With Tom Cruise starring as Chief John Anderton, Speilberg has created a slick futuristic action thriller. Cruise is effective as Anderton, giving a solid performance as the wronged chief with a history of heartache when it comes to his family. Max von Sydow (don’t ask me why but I spent the whole film thinking he was Christopher Plummer!) gives a good performance as the Director of the Pre-Crime Department, and the most gifted of the precogs, Agatha, is portrayed well by Samantha Morton. I also thought Colin Farrel was good as Danny Witwer, an officer sent to put the Pre-Crime system to the test and find any flaws in it before the decision for the system to go national is made. In fact the cast give good performances, and the plot is well up to sustaining interest over the runtime of 145 minutes. In aiming for the action thriller genre, Spielberg decided not to go into much depth of the social consequences of the Pre-Crime idea, which is a bit f a shame but doesn’t stop this from being a good film. It looks great, with convincing high tech equipment used in the determining of the pre-criminals whereabouts, and car designs that look like they’ve been borrowed and upgraded from Tron. It’s all put together very nicely indeed and, while I did have some misconceptions about the teaming up of Mr Cheese and the modern day Spielberg, I really enjoyed this film. (So much so that I would perhaps now consider watching War of the Worlds.)
It doesn’t have the same kind of intellectual impact as something like Harrison Bergeron (based on Kurt Vonnergut Jr’s short story), which I think it could have done with different handling. Not that it dumbs down the implications of Pre-Crime on society, it’s just that it’s not the main focus of the film. The music (by Matthew Ferraro, Paul Haslinger, and the inestimable John Williams) complements the film superbly (along with some classical works by Bach, Hayden, Schubert, and Tchaikovsky), the cinematography (Janusz Kaminski)is superb, and overall Minority Report is a film that I feel most sci-fi and Philip K Dick fans will be very well pleased with indeed. Not a classic perhaps, but not all that far off either.
Rating: Rated PG-13 for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content. (UK rating 12).
“When the chips are down and the pressure is up, every creature on this earth is interested in one thing and one thing only.”
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