I’m not usually one to go get the big-budget big-name action-y movies, but Minority Report got really great reviews pretty much everywhere I looked, so I figured it was worth checking out.
Were the reviewers watching the same movie I was?
Ok, it had some good points:
Visually, it was beautiful
The underlying concept is rather thought-provoking
But I had several gripes about it too.
First, the personal-bias gripes:
I just really don’t like Tom Cruise that much
I thought the technology presented in the movie was just sort of lame. I’m a big nerd, so every few minutes I’d be saying something like : “Why are they using THAT? That’s stupid!”
Secondly, the general gripes:
I thought most of the characters were poorly developed, and I didn’t feel particularly strongly about any of them
The plot felt very canned to me
Most of my complaints about the movie fall into those categories.
It’s certainly not “Battlefield Earth” bad, but it wasn’t all that great, and certainly didn’t warrant all the great reviews it got.
I basically liked Minority Report. It wasn’t the best movie I saw last year, or anything, but it wasn’t bad. For me it was a matter of seeing it, then thinking about it some, and then seeing it a second time.
I think at least some of the good reviews and general good rating for MR was “the puzzlement factor.” By that I mean the portion of the movie that left you, as the viewer, trying to discern what really happened and what didn’t. It wasn’t quite as complex or open to as many interpretations as Vanilla Sky, but there was still quite a bit of debate about how much of the movie actually happened and how much was perhaps just a dream.
I know one of the reasons I liked the movie was that it left me wondering and trying to figure that out.
I think a lot of the reason I’m unhappy with it is that it was so built up, and it didn’t live up to my expectations. That tends to happen with me. I suppose I should just stop reading or listening to reviews
I remember when 5th Element came out and it was advertised as being “The Next Star Wars” or some such nonesense, and then I saw it and was really angry about it.
The 5th Element would’ve done a lot better at the boxoffice if they had marketed it less seriously and more campy. As a campy sci-fi flick it rocks (all except for Chris Tucker and his little girl voice which grates my nerves no end).
I was OK on the movie. Yes, it was a good movie, visually, but I agree that the characters weren’t very well fleshed out and one of these days, I’d like to see Tom Cruise play a character that isn’t (1) the good guy, (2) intense in some form, and/or (3) the good guy. People point to “Born on the 4th of July” but he’s still got the same intensity there. Play a vulnerable dork, Tom!
Of course, I was mostly taken w/ Colin Farrel and “Hey, it’s the guy from The Practice!” (Steve Harris)
Anyway, my biggest complaint about Minorty Report is the same complaint that I have with most Spielberg movies: he has this need to wrap up everything at the end. He doesn’t have the Happy Ending Syndrome as badly as Ron Howard, but it’s there. I would have been happier if the movie ended with the overhead shot of Tom Cruise and dead Max von Sydow. A friend would have been happier if the movie had ended with Tom Cruise being imprisoned (“he’s guilty!”). It would have certainly made for a shorter movie.
During the movie’s theatrical release, there was mention here of the possibility that the end of the movie exists in the John Anderton character’s mind and this explains the radical shift in tone and storytelling style back to the conventional. I find that appealing, and it’s the way I choose to watch the movie now, true or not.
Rather than resurrect that thread, I’m curious to see if anyone has heard anything more about this theory.
I thought it was a good movie – a thought-provoking action film that actually was saying something, probably the best of that nature since “12 Monkeys.”
It dealt with people and Speilberg was smart enough to realize that really neat looking technology in films doesn’t have to please the anal retentives. Also, I thought Agatha was well drawn (as were a lot of the peripheral characters – her keeper, the doctor who fixes Cruise’s eyes, the woman who developed the system). Unlike most SF films, it was written for grownups, and I appreciate that.
Hype leads to disappointment. Knowing this, I have developed several ground rules to movie watching:
I watch most movies only after they come out on video. By then, I have forgotten most of the hype and trailers.
I watch fewer movies. This forces me to be selective so I only watch the ones that I think will appeal to me. Also, by lessening my exposure to movies, I don’t experience movie burnout that ruins a lot of so-so movies.
I tape everything on TV and use my VCR to skip almost all commercials by habit. If I must watch a movie in the theatre, I cover my eyes and ears and hum loudly during the trailers. I don’t watch movie review shows or “making of” specials.
I go into every movie with low expectations. (Although I will check the web to measure the overall public ratings of a movie so I can avoid the bombs, I discount the higher ratings in my mind to prepare myself before watching)
By following these rules, I have greatly increased my movie enjoyment. I enjoyed Minority Report.
p.s. I have a theory that many of the professional movie reviewers watch so many movies that they are burned out on movies, and consequently, out of touch with most fans who only watch movies occasionally.
Minority report was the first SS movie I recall enjoying. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t that bad either.
I thought it was kind of odd for the OP to gripe about the technology and props of the future, since I seem to recall from the hype-fest that they hired several leading “futurists”, or people who make a living out of projecting where technology is going to go, as consultants to give the movie as accurate a feel as possible.
The estate of Philip K. Dick really ought to put some kind of moratorium on handing out movie rights unless the moviemakers actually use his ideas. I think it would actually pay off in the long run.
For me, the film started coming off the rails right around the vertical-superhighway escape bit (sure, it looked cool, but for God’s sake, why? Shouldn’t you at least attempt to make your future look remotely plausible? What the hell happened to going around buildings?), and the last shred of credibility bounced away with Tom Cruise’s rubbery eyeballs.
I thought most of it was good, but the ending ruined everything for me and I felt really disappointed with it. I saw it coming ten miles away–the trusted elder mentor as the villain was so cliche.
Although it’s a bit late by now, there may be some spoilers ahead:
As pointed out above, one school of thought holds that this “ending” was all contrived in Anderton’s mind after he was imprisoned and the “jailer” tells him, just as he’s being locked up, that “they say some people have dreams while in cryo” (or some other similar comment). As such, the cliche’d ending makes much more sense and seems much less contrived; if it’s what Anderton is dreaming would happen, it’s entirely likely it’ll be a cliche type warm fuzzy result where he saves the day, saves the precogs, gets his wife back, gets her pregnant again, and everybody lives happily ever after.
At least that’s the way I saw it. YMMV, of course.
I agree that the movie came right off the rails in the last twenty minutes. I’d like to believe it was a hallucination, but sadly, there’s little reason to believe it was.
However, it was a good movie up until that point, technically brilliant, and I thought Tom Cruise was excellent.
The cars went up and down buildings because people seem to be parking on the side of their apartments. We saw Anderton getting out of his car and entering his place through the window. Seems like a damn good idea to free up parking on the street.
I thought the movie was fine until the last fifteen minutes or so where it fizzled out really badly. Overall a decent film but nothing more.
about the ending:
I was sympathetic to the theory that the ending was Anderton’s fantasy which would make a lot more sense. However I have concluded that the film really gave too few clues in that direction and I haven’t heard of Spielberg making this interpretation(has anyone seen his interviews on the DVD?) so I have to conclude that it was meant to be a straight ending
My biggest problem with it was that John Anderton STILL HAD SECURITY CLEARANCE to the building, including the very room where the Pre-Cogs were kept. As if that weren’t bad enough, his eyes apparently still let his wife into the containment area at the end of the movie.
When a contractor is fired around here, Security immediately deletes their domain password, removes their NIC cables from any machines they may be using, takes their proximity card reader and escorts them from the building.
I thought it was two-thirds of a great movie. It’s one of the more convincing glimpses of the future we’ve ever had (minus the big dopey maglev roads), and the future-crime scenario is provocative. But I thought it started going to hell when Anderton met the Mind of the Married Man in the apartment, and never recovered.
