Yar, you be here: Minority Report (Widescreen Edition) > Customer Reviews

Minority Report (Widescreen Edition) Customer Reviews (7 - 9 of 102 Reviews)

An "in the future movie" that actually works
The movie starts out revolving around a drug-addict Tom Cruise is the lead cop on a special type of crime force. What this squad does is watch crimes happen before they are commited, there are 3 "special" children that can tell the futute. How the police got their hands on em is a whole nother story. So there is a new advisor of some sort played by Colin Ferrel, right when he enters the story, Cruise is watching a crime happen so that he can go stop it, but he sees himself committing the crime. The movie flips the switch here and this is your warning to put your seatbelt on.

A great movie by Spielberg where he is at his best.

A "Sci-Fi Political Thriller" or a "Supernatural Fantasy": Addresses Plausible Philosophical Questions in Implausible Scenarios
I resent when films like "Minority Report" or "The Cell" are classified as "science fiction" rather than as "fantasy". The idea of "pre-cogs" doesn't bear more scientific plausibility than the idea of "time-machines", and it probably bears less.

It makes me wonder if Spielberg's inspiration for the screenplay came on the toilet, while reading a story in a yellow magazine about a girl who saw future crimes. (I've read that kind of nonsense years ago myself).

I sense Spielberg's wants to address two main philosophical questions:

1) What is the "free will?"
2) What should be the role of government in providing security?

The first one wasn't addressed successfully in the film. If as Spielberg's seems to suggest, we have a choice, how is anyone able to foretell what we would have chosen ? For example, if a "pre-cog" foretells that someone will inevitably murder and is apprehended by the police, is that apprehension inevitable in itself ? Then how the murder and the apprehension of the murderer before the murder could both be inevitable?

Of course someone could argue that there are infinitely many scenarios that could happen, with various degrees of likelihood. But then why have we went to so much trouble with a "precog" to figure out the obvious? For example I can safely predict by using statistics that in a city where a murder is committed by a homeless young man every month, and there are a thousand homeless young man in that city, one possible scenarios for any of those young men is to commit a murder that month. Thus if we arrest all the homeless young men in that city we saved a life that month.

I understand that to be able to predict crime and prosecute criminals accurately we need more than general crime statistics. And in that case one possible sci-fi (and maybe not even a sci-fi but already done in a government secret lab) solution would be to recognize brain waves that are produced before someone is ready to commit a serious violent act. Then we need to implant in former violent convicts and in those with genetic predisposition to act anti-socially (or perhaps in all of us) a sensor with a chip that detects that wave and disables the to-be-offender (by knocking him unconscious or paralyzing him) until the law enforcement officers arrive.

It is questionable whether the proposed technology will work as intended or it will disable anyone who vehemently wants to kill a cop in the "Grand Theft Auto". And even if it works flawlessly, would we really want to be subjected to this kind of invasiveness?

Spielberg would answer no, as it clear from "spider episode". (Spielberg cunningly used crawling spiders that nastily scan eye's iris", rather let's say, "flying by" butterflies who seamlessly scan eye's iris, to exploit spider-phobia of many people, including me)

I would answer a qualified yes. While I consider myself a progressive by supporting strong social safety net, and personal freedoms including the right-to-privacy, when it comes to crime prevention I am all for it. Government should not have a right to frivolously look at the adult pornography someone downloaded. But when it comes to apprehension of a serial killer that terrorizes community, the government should employ all available technology.

If that means sending electronic butterflies for scanning eye's irises of all residents of a certain building, so be it. Spielberg failed to convince me otherwise. He would've had a better shot had he used more plausible scenarios to make his points.


this is a great scifi film: fabulous details, good plot, scary
This film satisfies on all levels: acting is great, the story complex yet believable, deliciously quirky details on life in the future from personalized advertising via retina recognition to scurryng intelligent police robots, and even philosophical issues about fate and choice and service to the state. While the plot is that of a murder mystery, the themes are the choices that new technologies and a re-made society offer us.

Cruise is really a wonderful actor. He is super competent, athletic, and a natural leader, but also a tormented soul. This is one of his best performances, which made me a genuine fan. Colin Ferrel and van Sydow are also excellent, as are many of the other characters. About the only weakness that strained credibility for me were the pre-cogs - their parts were too weird and their powers unexplained.

Though I had already seen it several times, upon reviewing I was once again enthralled by the vision - you can view it on many levels. It is a masterpiece.

Warmly recommended.

Previous Page

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Next Page