And sure enough, the greatest strength of Minority Report, is by far its ideas. The film grapples with themes of determinism and free will particularly, what pre-cognition would mean for individuals and society, and it’s very compelling. But unlike in Blade Runner, the concepts aren’t supported by an equally compelling plot and characters. At times, in spite of Spielberg’s stylized, dedicated touches, it’s just another fugitive thriller.
Set in a world where murders are predicted by way of a trio of “Precogs” seeing into the future, the film follows Washington D.C. PreCrime Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) a faithful adherent to this new form of law and order. However when he’s implicated in a PreCrime murder of a man he doesn’t know, Anderton goes on the run, determined to clear his name upon discovery the system’s not as flawless as he’s believed.
Expanding on the visual style of Saving Private Ryan, Minority Report is even more heavily desaturated and pale-looking in an attempt by Spielberg and his crew to better replicate the look of a film noir, the story having a lot of noir influences to it. This was accomplished through a combination of over-lighting and bleach-bypassing the film negatives. And this style does look really interesting, allowing details to stand out that otherwise wouldn’t and casting darkness and shadow in high contrast. Watching it on DVD, it kind of looks like a movie being watched on an old VCR, or to quote Elvis Mitchell, “as if it were shot on chrome, caught on the fleeing bumper of a late '70s car”. And credit where it’s due, this is a terrifically unique way to present a film, especially one dealing with the bleak uncertainty of one’s own future. And the only exception to this style is a scene of the past explaining when Anderton’s son disappeared.
Janusz Kaminski’s versatile cinematography is also noteworthy and impressive, constantly moving with the action in new and intelligent ways and employing more long takes than perhaps any Spielberg movie up to this point. There’s a dreamlike quality to the way the future visions are shown, they’re not merely little movies that play for the PreCrime officers, and this foreshadows their untrustworthiness and ability to be manipulated. And of course I love that homage to The Passion of Joan of Arc over Agatha’s speech.
The world is well-realized enough, being recognizable yet fittingly futuristic. Probably its greatest feature is its technology, which is painstakingly accurate and even prescient in some regards due to Spielberg’s commitment to hiring consultants educated in the trajectory of technological innovation to inform the look of the world. Thus we get touchscreens and devices not too dissimilar to what many of us are used to now.
But for as unique and ahead of the curb as this stuff is, the plot more than once falls into typical action movie rotations. Stripped of its sci-fi context there really isn’t anything all that compelling to this movie of a man trying to clear his name. The conspiracy and murder stuff is equally contrived. This probably wouldn’t be bothersome though if Tom Cruise was a more compelling protagonist. Cruise was one of the biggest movie stars to headline a Spielberg film up to that point, and like many stars of his calibre he’s cast to perform a certain kind of role a certain way. John Anderton is just Tom Cruise, more Ethan Hunt than anything else. And that type of Tom Cruise performance is really banal. The dilemma he grapples with is fascinating, as is some of his reasoning, but these come from the writing. Cruise doesn’t really lend any personality or investment to this guy who might have been a stronger character under someone else. This isn’t to completely diminish Cruise, who obviously was a good fit for the action scenes, and though not gratifyingly, Minority Report does allow him to work with some complex material of a kind we don’t often see from Cruise. Colin Farrell, a much better actor, doesn’t get a lot to work with as Anderton’s DOJ agent nemesis Danny Witwer; for a time Anderton’s pursuer, but a character who’s ultimately proven to be just an expendable antagonist. And while there are minor memorable turns from a typically creepy Peter Stormare, an insane Tim Blake Nelson, and a charismatic Neal McDonough, the three good performances in the movie come from Lois Smith, Max von Sydow, and Samantha Morton.
As the creator of the Pre-Crime technology, Smith gets to exposit all the heavy details about the Precogs and the titular minority report -an alternative future predicted by one of the three, usually Agatha, which becomes the MacGuffin Anderton subsequently chases after. Smith only gets one scene, but she is its sheer highlight. Von Sydow of course is a cinema legend, to the point he’s great even when he’s not giving an especially dedicated performance. Such is the case with this one, where he plays the not-so-surprising surprise villain pulling the strings. Morton however is amazing as Agatha, who being both an oracle and a lifelong abuse victim is easily the most challenging character of the story. She’s the most sympathetic and the most fascinating character as well, and Morton passionately plays her tragedy with depth and understanding while still being in constant fear and pain with the burden of her foresight.
The movie is strongest when it’s addressing these notions, when they’re being impressed on and provoking the audience. The world of Minority Report is one where the future is ostensibly set in stone, that predictions made by the precogs are as inevitable as a ball rolling off a desk. The scene where this very metaphor is demonstrated to Witwer is one of the movies’ best because it very explicitly shows the logic that leads Anderton to have so much faith in the system. It’s flawed logic of course: the laws of gravity operating slightly differently than the laws of human nature, but it makes sense. The argument is made that without PreCrime, murders would carry out as the precogs foresee, but that an individual knowing the future has the opportunity to change that. Though only the law enforcement authorities exercise that power. The film touches on the idea of the self-fulfilling prophecy as Anderton, in believing he couldn’t murder a man he’s never met, is brought closer and closer to that ultimate fate. However the story, more interested in toppling systems, prefers to emphasize free will in determining ones’ actions, a noble theme in and of itself, and perhaps slightly more transgressive. Anderton’s prediction never had a minority report, yet he resisted committing murder, even when tempted by false evidence linking his would-be victim to his missing son; thus he discredits PreCrime as a whole, for a time making him a bigger target for someone like von Sydow’s Burgess, who depends on it. Nothing is set in stone, we as individuals have the power to change our future. The PreCrime system was doomed from the start.
Fans of Dick would note that the ending to Minority Report is vastly different from his original story. Of course, like most adaptations of Dick’s stories, there are quite a few liberties taken, but the most notable thing is that while the book ends with Anderton carrying out a murder and being arrested, PreCrime unaffected, the movie ends with him avoiding murder, exposing his superior, and abolishing PreCrime -a much more conventionally happy ending. While this is certainly one of the unambitious elements of the film I earlier criticized, I think at least the end of PreCrime is necessary for the story and the themes that have been established. The movie makes the argument that PreCrime is useless because of the mere existence of minority reports and the fallacies of a deterministic methodology. Some posit the theory that the happy ending here, just like in Total Recall, isn’t real, that it’s just a hallucination playing out while Anderton is in captivity, which is certainly a neat thing to speculate.
At the end of the day I think Minority Report is half a good movie, owing to the nature of its themes, its clever concept and world, and its unique look and feel. But the conspiracy plot feels very weak, the characters apart from Agatha relatively shallow. As much as there’s a noir aesthetic there’s no noir atmosphere, the likes of which Blade Runner had in spades. But in fairness, The Minority Report was one of Dick’s earliest stories and seems especially difficult to adapt. And I will say the concepts of this movie, the precogs and nature of PreCrime have become more recognizable science-fiction ideas than they were in the fifty years before Spielberg made this film. Still, maybe it’s better to shed all the sci-fi trappings and theoretical quandaries, and just have a traditional chase movie instead.
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