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Minority Report (2002)
Spielberg is starting to get back into my good books. After the disappointment of Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal and War Of The Worlds, he gave me a little faith when I saw Munich, a flawed, but powerful historical document film, and Tintin, while being less than amazing, showed that Spielberg had some life left in him. And last night, I gave Minority Report a try. And for the most part, it's a wonderful futuristic thriller with some neo-noirish touches and a story with solidarity, that never gets complicated or convoluted. But like most Spielberg films, it's definitely not without it's flaws- or Spielberg-style sentimentality.
Like every Spielberg film, it's got an excellent, attention grabbing opening, which demonstrates the efficiency of the Pre-Crime Unit, a division of the Police, in which three gifted individuals are able to get visions of murders before they happen. The chief of this division is John Anderton (Tom Cruise), who is distressed by the memory of his dead son, and takes drugs to heal the pain. The system works, until Anderton himself is accused of committing a murder 36 hours in the future. Anderton tries to find out who- if anyone- set him up and attempts to stay one step ahead of the officers of the Unit he helped create and an especially driven FBI agent (Colin Farell).
What I like the most about Minority Report, is that, for the most part, Spileberg's style is almost unrecognisable. His sentimentality creeps in a little bit throughout, and then kicks the door open near the end, but other than that, it seems like his style is almost muted. It's got all the effects, adventure and mainstreamness his films always have, but there is something about this movie that made me forget that it was a Spielberg film.
He acheives a nice tone, and it's pitch-perfect throughout, up until the last 15 minutes or so, where the tone changes, and makes the experience weird and disengaging. It doesn't hinder what has come before it too badly, but it's not exactly like you could disregard it. Also, I don't think Stevie acheives in conveying the themes he set out to. I picked from it that it was meant to be something like a deconstruction of a flaw in a perfect system, but with this, I don't think SS hits all the right notes to make it work. As a sci-fi thriller, Minority Report works just fine, and maybe even better than some of the best of the genre. But when it tries to be something else, it feels forced and blemishes the film's overall impact.
Tom Cruise is solid as John Anderton, which is expected, since Cruise is always good in whatever he's in. Colin Farell is ok here, and I can stomach him, which is funny, because I never usually do. The other performances from the cast range from good (Max Von Sydow, whose work I'm currently interested in) to the great (Samantha Morton, who really sells her performance) to the scene-stealing (Peter Stormare, who's a joy to watch). Plus, it's got Ted from How I Met Your Mother.
In the ranking of Spielberg films, I've seen so far, it misses out on the top ten, but sits comfortably around the likes of Close Encounters & Munich. Overall, it's a very good film, which obviously tries to be something more, but doesn't really achieve it.
+
Spielberg is starting to get back into my good books. After the disappointment of Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal and War Of The Worlds, he gave me a little faith when I saw Munich, a flawed, but powerful historical document film, and Tintin, while being less than amazing, showed that Spielberg had some life left in him. And last night, I gave Minority Report a try. And for the most part, it's a wonderful futuristic thriller with some neo-noirish touches and a story with solidarity, that never gets complicated or convoluted. But like most Spielberg films, it's definitely not without it's flaws- or Spielberg-style sentimentality.
Like every Spielberg film, it's got an excellent, attention grabbing opening, which demonstrates the efficiency of the Pre-Crime Unit, a division of the Police, in which three gifted individuals are able to get visions of murders before they happen. The chief of this division is John Anderton (Tom Cruise), who is distressed by the memory of his dead son, and takes drugs to heal the pain. The system works, until Anderton himself is accused of committing a murder 36 hours in the future. Anderton tries to find out who- if anyone- set him up and attempts to stay one step ahead of the officers of the Unit he helped create and an especially driven FBI agent (Colin Farell).
What I like the most about Minority Report, is that, for the most part, Spileberg's style is almost unrecognisable. His sentimentality creeps in a little bit throughout, and then kicks the door open near the end, but other than that, it seems like his style is almost muted. It's got all the effects, adventure and mainstreamness his films always have, but there is something about this movie that made me forget that it was a Spielberg film.
He acheives a nice tone, and it's pitch-perfect throughout, up until the last 15 minutes or so, where the tone changes, and makes the experience weird and disengaging. It doesn't hinder what has come before it too badly, but it's not exactly like you could disregard it. Also, I don't think Stevie acheives in conveying the themes he set out to. I picked from it that it was meant to be something like a deconstruction of a flaw in a perfect system, but with this, I don't think SS hits all the right notes to make it work. As a sci-fi thriller, Minority Report works just fine, and maybe even better than some of the best of the genre. But when it tries to be something else, it feels forced and blemishes the film's overall impact.
Tom Cruise is solid as John Anderton, which is expected, since Cruise is always good in whatever he's in. Colin Farell is ok here, and I can stomach him, which is funny, because I never usually do. The other performances from the cast range from good (Max Von Sydow, whose work I'm currently interested in) to the great (Samantha Morton, who really sells her performance) to the scene-stealing (Peter Stormare, who's a joy to watch). Plus, it's got Ted from How I Met Your Mother.
In the ranking of Spielberg films, I've seen so far, it misses out on the top ten, but sits comfortably around the likes of Close Encounters & Munich. Overall, it's a very good film, which obviously tries to be something more, but doesn't really achieve it.
+