{"id":57,"date":"2002-06-27T16:05:00","date_gmt":"2002-06-27T22:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/?p=57"},"modified":"2016-10-25T09:36:14","modified_gmt":"2016-10-25T14:36:14","slug":"minority-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zanthan.com\/wordsintobytes\/reviews\/movie\/minority-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Minority Report"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nI admit that the theater conditions during Minority Report<\/a> put me in a bad mood, but the glowing reviews by Roger Ebert and in The New Yorker<\/a> simply floor me. To the screenwriter’s credit, the plot had enough twists and turns that even when I thought I knew where it was going, I didn’t quite. And the twist and turns are plausible within the logic of the story; that is, the movie doesn’t cheat.\n<\/p>\n

\nBut Minority Report<\/i> also had a lot of those Spielbergian excesses that I’ve hated in every one of his films since E.T.<\/i> On top of that, I feel I’ve been CGI’d to death. The hollowed eye-socket. Fakey. The fight scenes. Fakey.\n<\/p>\n

\nI didn’t hate the movie: there were some fun things to watch: the UI at PreCrime; the talking ads at the mall (scary enough to make me shop online 100%); the garden of poisonous delight (great stolen kiss there, Lois<\/a>). But so many other scenes seemed lifted from other movies: Bladerunner, Brazil, Robocop, The Fifth Element, and Groundhog’s Day.\n<\/p>\n

\nI think the elements were blended by the same kinds of minds parodied in The Morning News the scenes: the Minority Report Trailer. Watch trailer 3, read the story, and then let me know whether you agree or disagree with Roger Ebert that this is a 4-star movie.\n<\/p>\n

\nSlate’s Tim Appelo offers another dissenting view, questioning the film’s noir<\/strong> classification.\n<\/p>\n

Alert: Spoilers Ahead<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\nAJM points out the film’s biggest flaw. Why disband the PreCrime program when you can use it to prevent murder? Stop convicting people for crimes they haven’t committed, but continue to use it to stop murders before they happen.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhy is so much attention drawn to the fact that if John Anderton (Tom Cruise<\/a>) removes his bandages before his time is up, that he will go blind and then nothing comes of it? We get the warning twice. We get the ticking clock. We get him struggling with the spiderbots. One eye is uncovered and scanned. Tom reacts in agony. We remember a line early in the film, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” And then nothing. No consequences. No payoff.\n<\/p>\n

\nDo eyeballs really bounce and roll like billiard balls? I thought they were soft and gloopy. And don’t they need to be on ice, or at least chilled so they don’t start rotting? How long were they in his box of stuff from work? How did they get into his box of stuff from work?\n<\/p>\n

\nYou mean to tell me they have a rogue employee, who’s fingered as a murder, and they haven’t changed the door code yet?\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen they finally explain why this film is called Minority Report<\/i>, I breathed a sigh of relief and thought, “Maybe it’s not such a stupid name for this movie.” But that thread of the plot is dropped and I reverted to my original opinion.\n<\/p>\n

\nDanny Witwer (Colin Farrell<\/a>) is an experienced homicide detective and he goes alone to confront the bad guy with the proof of his crime? And before he does so, he hands him a loaded gun. And he expects what to happen? Okay, maybe he didn’t read the part in the PreCrime documentation that explained all three PreCogs had to be present to foresee a murder. (Wonder how he missed that in his thorough investigation of the PreCrime unit.) Even if you believe he was waiting for the good guys to save him in moment of dramatic flourish, the entire setup is out of character for someone who is convinced of flaws in the system.\n<\/p>\n

Bottom Line: Recommended with reservations.<\/h4>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Everyone runs.<\/p>\n

Bottom Line: Recommended with reservations.<\/h4>\n
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