Minority Report

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<div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="501" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 146 WIDTH="495"><div> <IMG SRC="133a7a8c0.jpg" border=0 width="122" height="140" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"> <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00005JL78/reelmoviecriticc"> Minority Report (Widescreen Edition) on DVD</A>  </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> .</div> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="579" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 23 WIDTH="575"><div> Minority Report *** (PG-13) </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="575"><div> Reviewed By Pam Singleton</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="549" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 23 WIDTH="545"><div>  The elimination of choice</div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="580" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> Tom Cruise: John Anderton </div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Max von Sydow: Lamar Burgess  </div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 ><NOBR><div> Colin Farrell: Danny Witwer </div> </NOBR></tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="304"><div> Samantha Morgan: Agatha  </div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="269"><div> Lois Smith: Iris Hineman </div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP><NOBR><div> Kathryn Morris: Lara Anderton </div> </NOBR></tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="269"><div> Director: Steven Spielberg</div> </tD> <tD VALIGN=TOP WIDTH="304"><div>  </div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <B>30 Second Bottom Line</B>: A futuristic thriller set in Washington, DC in 2054, where police utilize psychic technology to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crime. Tom Cruise stars as the head of this Pre-Crime unit who is forced to run when he is accused of the future murder of a man he hasn't even met. </div> <bR> <div> <B>Story Line:</B> Murder has been eliminated in the nation's capital. Since the inception of the Pre-Crime unit six years earlier, no murders have been committed. The linchpins of this complex crime fighting team are three warm bodies suspended in a pool of liquid nutrients and psychochemicals to induce vivid dreams of murder. Referred to as the Pre-Cogs (precognitive), the twins Dashiell and Arthur seem controlled in their patterns of thought by the third being, Agatha (Samantha Morton).  </div> <bR> <div> The Maestro of the organization is Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise). Symphonic music even swells as Anderton dons his video gloves and begins to conduct the images projected by the pre-cogs into a viable sequence of events on a glass screen. The assembled information will lead the elite force of pre-crime cops to the right location to stop the murder before it occurs. They have been right for six years…Or have they?</div> <bR> <div> Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) from the Justice Department is investigating the Pre-Crime unit to determine the answer to that question. Before taking the project nation-wide Justice's inquiring minds want to know.</div> <bR> <div> The Temple is what the chamber is called where the pre-cogs are kept in a constant state of somnambulism. Deities, is how they have come to be viewed by some people. There's one scene when the infallibility of the three is being questioned in quiet tones and I swear the set up appears as the three wise men attending to the Christ child…or children in this case. One thing has not changed by 2054<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Symbol" >-</FONT>the government is still lying to the populace, saying that the pre-cogs live wonderful lives, with great surroundings and a private gym! </div> <bR> <div> Anderton has enough doubt and fear in his life already, without having to answer to an outside agency regarding the actions of his uber-swat team. He is anguished and guilt-ridden over the loss of his young son six years ago, which led to the break-up of his marriage to Lara (Kathryn Morris). At night he wanders the alleyways of the dark city, looking to score his drug of choice. Anderton is a man on the edge.</div> <bR> <div> How close he is to falling off comes in a vision of murder, which he orchestrates from Agatha's premonition. Anderton comes face to face with himself as the killer of a man he has never seen before. He will commit murder in 36 hours. He has to run. But you can not hide in this society where virtually no privacy exists. Everyone's eyes are scanned for identification at every turn <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#FFCC66" FACE="Symbol" >¾</FONT> boarding the subway or entering a store. </div> <bR> <div> State of the art equipment and determined pre-crime cops are deployed to arrest Anderton, men and women he has trained. Grave doubts about this fail-safe system loom large for him. At a crucial moment Agatha, a woman who has lived her life entirely within her mind, tells Anderton, "You can choose." Washington, DC is a town without murder but it is a decidedly gray world. Or perhaps that's John's vision of the world.</div> <bR> <div> <B>Tell Me More About It</B>: Steven Spielberg has plunged us into another of his alternate universes. Last year's <I><B>A.I. Artificial Intelligence</B></I> was my favorite film of 2001. Spielberg admits he wanted this movie to be "…dark and grainy, and to be really cold. This isn't a warm adventure the way <I>A.I.</I> was." </div> <bR> <div> <I><B>Minority Report</B></I> is adapted from a short story by Phillip K. Dick, the legendary science fiction writer. Other films adapted from Dick's stories include <I>Blade Runner</I> and <I>Total Recall</I>. It is deliberate that we get the feel of the "near future" while watching the screen. It's all so familiar…sort of. Nothing seems beyond the pale of possibility, certainly not the security measures and identification procedures in the wake of 9/11 and its aftermath. </div> <bR> <div> Max von Sydow is Lamar Burgess, the elder statesman of Pre-Crime, and a father figure for John. Burgess and Iris Hineman (Lois Smith), a research scientist, could be called the parents of the pre-cog movement. Iris is now a very scary, and humorous, lady who lives down the lane with a deadly flair for horticultural. </div> <bR> <div> There is much to admire in this film. As with any Spielberg film you expect the special effects and set designs to wow you. In the special effects category I found <I><B>Minority Report</B></I> to be a decidedly uneven film. The Chamber, The Hall of Containment and the labyrinthine tenement building, where mechanical spiders search for Anderton, are fantastic. But the Magnetic-Levitation traffic system laid out here is notsogreat. The vehicles look like large wooden slot cars. And the chase sequence involving the cars, the criss-crossing traffic and Tom Cruise leaping from hood to hood was laughable rather than thrilling.</div> <div> Add to that the implausibility of Anderton's luck in finding a get away car. </div> <bR> <div> We are asked to consider a world where murder does not exist…but at what cost? Questions of ethics arise. The neatly tied-up package we get as an ending doesn't seem to work with most of the rest of the film. </div> <bR> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="1" CELLSPACING="1" WIDTH="591" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> Pam Singleton © 2002</div> </tD> </tR> <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 19 WIDTH="587"><div> <A HREF="mailto:Reelmoviec@aol.com" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:Reelmoviec@aol.com"><U><U>pam@reelmoviecritic.com</U></U></A></div> </tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>