07/01/2002 Entry:
"Minority Report - Steven Spielberg (2002)"

I went into this with hig hopes only to have them somewhat dashed. As a massive Phillip K. Dick fan, I'm always interested when a new adaptation comes along. Also, early buzz on this seemed to positive. Alas, gaping plot holes and a poor ending brought me back to Earth.

The first third of this was actually really enjoyable. The high tech future Spielberg has created is actually really cool to experience. I especially liked the way the fight in the car plant was shot. At various points frames were removed to create a very jumpy and frenetic look which worked really well.

The other really nice piece was when Anderton and Agatha were walking around in the mall, with Agatha telling him what to do. This whole bit was done really well and it contained a tension which wasn't really felt throughout the rest of the movie.

The whole movie is shot in this kind of washed out way, with high grain and blown out light sources. It almost seemed like they were trying to replicate prosumer DV lighting. I really liked the style, but I'm not sure it fit the narrative all that well. When I think of old noirs, I don't think of washed out colors, I think of deep blacks and whites, high contrast cinematography. THe general vision of the movie was pretty spectacular though. The cars were cool, the device Anderton uses to "conduct" his future crime was totally great. I also really liked the kind of 3D movies he plays, the way they don't appear to be perfect representations, but they're kind of fuzzy and grainy. Obviously an imperfect technology. Usually you would just see a beautiful 3D person step into the room.

This movie lost it for me when Anderton used his own eyes to get back into police headquarters. I mean, come on. I generally don't get hung up over plot holes (I generally don't even notice them) but this was too much for even me to bear. As soon as his eyes get scanned after entering the subway, an alert pops up on police monitors, yet a day later he uses those same eyes to enter police headquraters and nothing happens? Please. After that I couldn't take the movie seriously anymore. To make matters worse, it happens AGAIN later when his wife uses them to get him out. ADDED LATER: Someone pointed out to me today that the old guy could have purposely kept Anderton out of the system in order to make sure that events played out the way they were supposed to. I started to give this some credence, until I remembered the second use of said eyes, for which there is now even less excuse.

Another sign of a bad movie for me is when I started calling out future plot points in my head. This means two things - a) the movie is predictable and b) its not keeping my interest. There's nothing wrong with a predictable movie necessarily, because when its done well you don't sit there thinking "oh, i bet such and such is going to happen later." This actually happened to me twice in Minority Report. The first spot was when Anderton went to see the criminal who was convicted for the drowning, and the person in charge there told him about eyeball replacement ("oh, well, I guess Anderton is going to get his eyes replaced later") and the other time was when we first see the images of Anderton shooting someone ("oh I guess Anderton is going to find the person who killed his kid.") It turned out the second one wasn't true but it was close.

The ending felt tacked on and rang false. It took all the interest out of the story and turned it into a rote thriller. I agree with those who have written that Spielberg would have been better served investigating the social issues which arise from this technology of the future (loss of privacy, being convicted of "future crimes") and less time churning out the kind of movie we've all seen before. There are certainly enough things going on now that resonate with the material that you would think a more in depth investigation of it would be pretty meaningful. Alas, we get very little, if any, of that. I would take issue with the people complaining about the product placement in the movie though. Anyone who thinks the future isn't going to be exactly like that is just fooling themselves.