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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Minority Report

  
  

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The Natural Way
07:44 / 27.06.02
I used to know a stupid person who insisted on calling his phone the "telecommunications network". This pissed me off and I used to have a go at him....to which he responded "Stop giving me the JUSTIFICATION!"

He would then proceed to tell me to "give up the hope." By which point I already had.
 
 
videodrome
10:32 / 27.06.02
I'm not very good with metaphors, Runs. Am I the stupid person, or the phone?
 
 
The Natural Way
11:00 / 27.06.02
Twas just a "story". Had no bearing on anything. Carry on before the rot sets in......
 
 
videodrome
20:01 / 27.06.02
Ah. Right on. ahem.

Cameron: I don't know how to anwser yer question, other than to say, um, yes. Between here and what I've written on my page (PM for the addy if you're really that interested, which I doubt) I think I've made clear the parts of the film that appeal to me; unfortunately those are the bits that most easily get minimized by the gears of Hollywood. I see your perspective, but what's happened is that I've keyed on the bits that I liked, and you've keyed on the bits that put you off. Typically I'd be in your position but not this time, for whatever reason.
 
 
ill tonic
18:02 / 28.06.02
Although it entertained me - that is to say, I wasn't bored - Minority Report felt like a flat line. A dial tone. There was no rise or fall in the dramatic flow. It held my attention but it didn't thrill me or sadly, take me for a ride

With that said, it's paradox time :

I thought A.I. was an utter piece of crap (although I haven't given it a second viewing to find out if my intial thoughts were valid or not - I may have gone in biased)and entertainment wise, I got more from Minority Report but for reasons I can't explain (thus the paradox)I think A.I. is the better movie. (Which comes as surprise because A.I. was shit, shit, shit.) Maybe it has something to do with the way they explored their premises. Even though I didn't like it, A.I. felt like it had depth where as Minority Report was all surface and shine. As reported above, Minority Report had some nifty ideas but instead of exploiting them for the ultimate mind fuck, it only used them as props in a story that had about as much wit and depth as an episode of Matlock.

Hmmmmm, maybe I didn't like this movie as much as I thought I did ...

I thought the cinematography used in the spiders scene was wonderful - the way the camera dipped in and out of the rooms as it followed them on their search.

But other then that, there really wasn't anything else original or innovative enough to seperate this film from any of the other crap that I have seen this summer.

A subpar effort on Spielbergs part. He's better then this. I just don't think the old man is trying hard enough or (like AI) perhaps he's trying too hard.

As per those who have gone before me -- I don't get the media's "dark" label either ... hell, wasn't this flick rated PG 13??? Woo woo -

And the product placements?? Well they didn't bother me because they had context -- which is much better then the sly postioning of a soda machine in the BG or the glaringly obvious shot of a parking vehicle that fills the screen with it's shiney grill and gleaming GM (ford, whatever) logo . Gawd, now those drive me crazy.

Say --

Did anyone else notice just how large Max Von Sydow looked next to Cruise during the sit down scene in Sydow's office? They hid the height distance well in every other shot -- but in that one, Max looked like a friggin giant. I wonder what a shot like that does to Cruise's pretty boy ego?

Yeah, right ... okay. I'm done.
 
 
Jack Fear
18:09 / 28.06.02




From my boys at Modern Humorist.
 
 
CameronStewart
18:49 / 28.06.02
>>>surprise because A.I. was shit, shit, shit.<<<

I don't think that A.I. is shit - it's not a successful film by any stretch, but I do think that it's an interesting failure.

>>>A subpar effort on Spielbergs part. He's better then this.<<<

A review I read of Minority Report (one of the very few negative ones) said that this would be a perfectly acceptable film coming from anyone other than Spielberg. When compared to the rest of his ouevre, though, it's very disappointing.
 
 
Jack Fear
19:11 / 28.06.02
A.I. isn't a bad little movie, if you you shut the video player off just before the voice-over that leads into the "2,000 years later" bit, leaving David in a watery grave in the throes of an obsession that will not let go.

But that would be an open ending, and Mr. Spielberg is no longer comfortable with ambiguity.
 
 
videodrome
13:55 / 30.06.02
Saw Men In Black II last night. Sheesh. If you thought the product placement was gratuitous in MR, MIB2 will have you putting your eyes out to avoid it.
 
 
Chuckling Duck
14:50 / 01.07.02
Spoilers

Yeah, the movie should have ended with Anderson not shooting Crow, thereby proving the precogs fallible and destroying precrime. If they wanted to make his supervisor a villain, they could have had him encouraging Anderson to shoot Crow to save precrime. But what are you going to do?

If you want to redeem the ending somewhat, pretend that everything that happened after Anderson was put in confinement was actually just a cold sleep fantasy a la Vanilla Sky.

Interesting that Cruise is doing all these brain-fry movies.
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
12:50 / 06.07.02
didnt the story and with anderton deciding he HAD to kill they guy to keep precrime alive, and thus stop the millitary takeover of the police force?
 
 
Elijah, Freelance Rabbi
12:52 / 06.07.02
that should be 'end' and by story i mean short story novella, which has been reprinted in a verticle hardcover edition for 12 bucks american, FOR 1 SHORT STORY. I gagged when a coworker walked in with it.
 
 
Spaniel
12:51 / 07.07.02
Hat's off, Cameron. Ditto on every single bloody point.

Spielberg really is a retarded arsehole. Why must every film revolve around a spectacularly one-dimensional vision of the nuclear family?

Didn't that, er... "child" make anyone else want to puke?

If only the entire film could have lived up to that first ten minutes.
 
 
The resistable rise of Reidcourchie
17:07 / 09.07.02
I must admit I found the Spider's scene completely chilling and not at all funny, regardless of the couple stopping arguing long enough to be scanned. The same went for the invasive advertising, I really didn't think it would do any good for the companies doing the placement but that just may be because of my beliefs.

Out of the group of friends I went to the cinema with I was the only real Sci-Fi fan, they all though the story was very original whilst I though it was something of an old SF standby (though arguably not when Dick originally wrote). The thing is I keep feeling that the film should be though provoking but I dismiised it from my head within about 10 minutes of seeing it.
 
 
Mr Tricks
22:41 / 09.07.02
just saw it... & yeah, fun candy... but not much more...

I agree, I hoped the movie would end by the end of the 3rd act...

I was shocked that Cruise played against an actor "prittier" than he, that Brad Pitt looking Fed.

and Yeah, Max Von Sedio looked like Hermin Munster!!!

It was great to see him though, reminded me of Untill the end of the World...
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
17:00 / 13.07.02
Pah. Far too long, stupid ending which seemed to work on the principle of 'you can do whatever you want but Tom Cruise has to be alive at the end of it', the 'twist' two thirds of the way through being straight out of LA Confidential (as soon as Cruise's boss asked the FBI agent whether he had said anything about his suspicions to anyone else I knew he was going to shoot him) and the direct implication at the end that everything was going to be okay for Anderton and his wife because they were going to have another baby to replace the one they'd carelessly lost several years previously.

Oh yeah, and it smelt like someone had shat in the cinema I watched it in too.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
15:46 / 14.07.02
Damn, Lada just beat me to the 'LA Confidential' thing - I literally found myself mouthing "bang" just before that red spot appeared on t'other guy's chest.

Just like Vanilla Sky, there was a point about three-quarters of the way through this film where it could have been about to end, and end as a very good, dark, disturbing piece of cinema. But nooooooo. My ideal ending would have had Anderton saying "Goodbye Crowe" and then pulling the trigger, and then blackout... But I'd have settled for the ending Cameron describes, which would have kept Cruise's moral sheen untarnished, I suppose. Instead, Minority Report does some of the same ridiculous shit that Vanilla Sky did - huge plot holes; lots of reassuring sentimentality (the pregnancy at the end was easily the worst thing in the whoile film - predictable by that point, yet still completely implausible as Cruise and his ex-wife have demonstrated no spark of chemistry or desire to reunite prior to that point, not to mention grossly offensive); no comeback or suggestion of culpability for the main character's earlier mistakes (the realisation that he's been one of the main perpetrators of a corrupt and highly repressive police state doesn't seem to bother Anderton one iota); tedious expositional monologue... I could go on. I can't believe the extent to which it suddenly turned into such a different movie - even the colour sceme seems to change after Sydow makes that oh-so-obvious-and-Agatha-Cristie-esque blunder.

I will say this though: I didn't mind the humour that Cameron cites - to me it seemed part of the major debt that the first 3/4 of the film owes to Terry Gilliam's Brazil. And I do think there was a lot to like about that chunk of the movie - the visual theme of immersion in water, the idea that the general public will accept a visibly repressive police force as long as they can still shop at the Gap, those cool-as-fuck gloves...
 
 
_pin
18:46 / 14.07.02
I'm sorry- is the Big Boss Guy shotting the FBI guy even a twist? After Anderton shoots Crowe, and then there's a shot of Big Boss Guy sitting a a chair... 'Nuff said.

And how can you possibly credit a six minute monologue, on the phone, to the guy who did the crime, and is now watching the crime on a big fucking TV screen, explaining to the man who did the crime what the fucking crime is!!

Anderton should have just not shot Big Boss Guy. End it there. Have a short film that was confusing as fuck by constantly adding precog sequences into it.

Basically, you relegate Spielberg to potter away as an SFX monkey and get a much better director to direct. And you fucking hurt Spielberg every time he implies that we're too stupid to work out what's going on so he has to spend 45 mins telling us. Badly.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
12:18 / 15.07.02
I rather enjoyed it. In the same way I'd enjoy Indiana Jones if it was The Fugitive set in a world invented by Phillip K. Dick.

And that's a good thing.
 
 
Baz Auckland
13:28 / 15.07.02
When Anderton is lowered into the cells, I thought the movie was over then and there.... and it probably should have been. I still enjoyed it quite a lot overall, but for that split second I was amazed and pleasently suprised that it had an unhappy ending.
 
 
Higher than the sun :)
23:39 / 17.07.02
God this film was just awful. God-damn Tom Cruise, short-assed smarm stain that he is.

I liked the score though, composed by Stephen Spielberg's secret lover John Williams.

Did anyone else think the way Tom Cruise acts at the very end was hilarious?
 
 
Baz Auckland
12:49 / 20.07.02
I just read the book yesterday, and it was a lot better than the movie. The basis was the same with the 3 mutant precogs and whatnot, but it's a much better conspiracy...and the main character is a balding 50-year old cop.
 
 
RadJose
14:17 / 20.07.02
i'll have to concur that the short story is WAY good... also it takes less time to read it than see the flick AND the title makes more goddam sence...
 
 
The Natural Way
11:20 / 22.07.02
But then the book's K Dick and the film's Spielberg, so what do you expect?
 
 
that
06:50 / 29.07.02
Spoilers ahoy, ok?






Ok. Firstly, and I don't think anyone here has mentioned this - the precogs seem to be geographically limited in what they can see in that they just deal with that one state (and because they are sent off to an isolated island to live out their days in 'peace') - so how could precrime ever have gone national anyway? I don't remember any mention of breeding programmes for future precogs to manage the rest of the U.S.

Secondly - that whole sandwich and milk thing - it was not meant to be funny, surely? That was one of the most truly sickening things I've ever seen in film.

The advertising stuff was exceptionally heavy handed - specially for the bloody Gap. Just sick-making again, but in a different way.
 
 
that
06:52 / 29.07.02
And yeah, I agree, it really, reeeeallly should've ended way before it did...
 
 
Saveloy
09:04 / 29.07.02
Regarding the ending, it's a while since I read it but isn't the ending in the original story totally upbeat as well? Involves the Cruise character and missus sodding off to a colony planet with fake ids, as I recall.
 
 
The Strobe
21:41 / 31.07.02
I'm going to post longer tomorrow when I've got a chance to be detailed.

But basically: I really liked it. Maybe it's because I've sat through too many shit films at the cinema recently, but I really liked it, and if people at multiplexes are going to see it, I'm glad. I QUITE liked the ending - though I think the PACING was really shot; what videodrome said about "emotional climax" coming at exactly the wrong point was bang on.

It looked great; some lovely shots, and I thought the pre-crime visualisatoins were done excellently. I also liked this image of the future - yes, there's loads of really-cool hi-tech stuff, but there's an awful lot of tradition there too; you can't just bulldoze old houses because they aren't shiny and boxy. The cars did seem to be added slightly as a CGI afterthought.

Hated the end pregnancy; generally hated Anderton's wife, tbh. Badly written, not greatly acted. But Cruise was pretty good, all things considered, and the thing held together.

I liked it, overall. I think in absolute terms, it's not earthshaking. But in relative terms to this summer of cinema... it's a breath of fresh air. I'll write more tomorrow.
 
 
houdini
21:19 / 14.08.02
I thought this film had a good story at the core, some lame acting and a traditional unnecessary "happy" ending.

I'm surprised to hear all the chat about plot holes though. I think that the POINT of the film is this invasiveness of a future that is predetermined, of people being able to tell you that you're a murderer when you know nothing about it. That's the whole scary part of the dilemma of what God Knows. And for that the precogs can't just turn out to be wrong actually. That makes the whole thing meaningless: Yeah, PreCrime solved all these other cases but in the case of The Hero they were just having a nightmare. For Only Tom Cruise Can Defy Destiny. Bollocks.

So I thought the way that the precogs were allowed to be right, and PreCrime was allowed to be effective was much more interesting. And the loophole in the system worked for me, as did the paradox ending. The question of the story thus becomes: "If PreCrime could work would it be wrong to implement it?" Which is a much more interesting question than "Could the precogs be wrong after all?"

Having said that, the whole Bad Boss riff stank. It stank in L.A. Confidential and it stank in this. The trouble in both cases is that it becomes wholly predictable. By the time they're revealled, neither movie has left itself anywhere else to go. So it's obvious that that "twist" is coming. The idea isn't bad per se but it has to come as a surprise to the audience, rather than as the inevitable next step.

My second major gripe was the unnecessary action sequences. This really should've been much more noir or a movie without all of the stunts. I know they wanted to get a Running Man / Fugitive / Logan's Run thing in there but I thought the whole jetpack battle was utterly reprehensible and shot all of the movie's credibility in the head. Oh well.

This was not a good film for Spielberg to make because it was a difficult film to make work well and required some bold and uncompromising choices. I think he may well be too big in Hollywood to really make those choices any more, sad to say. But then I don't really think he's been able to be bold since Schindler's List. Which is a shame, since much of his earlier work was extremely groundbreaking.
 
 
Our Lady of The Two Towers
09:14 / 16.08.02
He makes a cameo in the new Austin Powers movie and, when questioned, holds up his Oscar and says "I think this little guy means I know what I'm doing." As Doctor Evil might say, " Rrrrright."
 
 
videodrome
13:20 / 16.08.02
Who is 'he', Lada? Cruise or Spielberg? Not that it'll get me into Austin Powers, but I'm curious. If it's Cruise, at least he's willing to publicly take the piss...

Houdini, I disagree with the idea that this was a bad film for Spielberg to make. The reasons you state to support the idea are exactly why it was a great film for him to make, even if it ended up being an attempt rather than a success. I'd much rather see Big Hollywood attempt and fail than leave this sort of thing alone altogether. While it's not a huge financial success on Spielberg's terms, MR has made enough cash that other similar films might follow. I'd be glad to see more real sci-fi on the screen, anything that isn't bloody Star Trek.
 
 
Sebastian
14:02 / 16.08.02
I was remembering yesterday the scene where Cruise finally gets into the set-up, finds all those pictures of kids lying on the bed, his son's, and then pulls the gun on the guy. Besides this scene being the pivotal point of the whole plot -is he going to commit murder or not?-, coupled by a Tom Cruise's characterisation I never expected I would see him do during his career reaching its emotional peak at this point, I was particularly moved by how the character literally sorted the predicted "future" by mumbling and spurting the nearly incomprehensible discourse on legal rights, with his mind completely -and manipulatively- obliterated to recognise the whole mockery. I know some people already recognised here an easy "spilbiergy" moment, but actually for myself it was a pretty successful and convincingly intense sequence. The rest of the movie was a fairly previsory packacged development, actually making the movie reachable for all audiences and not just the couple of sci-fi PKD freaks. However, even for myself -having not seen a Spielberg film since Indiana Jones- the blissfull happyness of the ending was definitely at all unexpected.

It may be worth adding that the scene surely had here in Argentina an additional impact, since we are facing these months an unprecedented wave of criminality, with kidnappings and murders, and the necessary coupled upsurgent discussion on death penalty in the media. So just review the whole Anderton-son plot and imagine.
 
 
000
19:42 / 16.08.02
Speilberg is a fucking pedophile. And don't worry, Kubrick was too, can you remember those photos of them 2 together? Shivers.

The moment Agatha lands on top of the bed full of kids photos, did you notice her position while she screams out her pain (of the inevitable?), did you notice how childlike her face seems at that point? Didn't her reflected head on the broken mirror disgust you?

Go ahead, see it again.
 
 
cusm
18:55 / 16.01.03
Had the movie ended with the confrontation between Cruise (who absolutely positively is not gay) and Crow, it would have made the entire reason he pursued the man a paradox in the first place. Which is was, mind you, but without the conspiracy you have all sorts of juicy hints about how maybe Agatha was behind the paradox somehow as a means to escape her own confinement. Much better than a murder mystery, I'd think.

Then you'd just have to do something with the minority reports (which were largely ignored, even though the movie was named for them) to prove the fallibility of the system to tie up the plot and you'd have a decent thriller that makes some points, and leaves you with a man who destroys himself to change the world for the better. This could do so much better with a reedit.

One thing I did really like though was the chase parts where Agatha used her precog abilities to help them evade pursuit. Now that was cool.
 
 
Brigade du jour
20:13 / 16.01.03
Tom Cruise is gay you know. And NOBODY CARES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Big sigh.

Anyway, back to the movie. I thought it woz rilly guud. Product placement has me in two minds (and Spielberg too, probably). On the one hand, a satire on the very phenomenon by very obviously sending our hero Tom into the local Dolce & Gabbana or Gucci or C&A or whatever it was, only to (wow!) advance the plot. On the other hand, a nifty way to balance the film's budget.

But it's an interesting movie, interesting story, quite an exciting action movie with cool stunts, and I grew up with Spielberg movies so it's a question of being terribly fond of your mad old uncle, no matter how mad and old he now is. Maybe that invalidates my opinion, then. Ho hum ...
 
  

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