Previously, Tom Cruise waited for the good movies to come to him. He had the talent, he had the box office draw, he had the everyman look that Hollywood knew could allow him to slide into any number of films. Now, Cruise intentionally seeks out the good stories and either jumps into his projects in an acting capacity or in a capacity as producer. As the lead in Minority Report, he has helped to make a summertime blockbuster that dares to tackle such finicky genres as sci-fi and film noir. The result is a thrilling motion picture with enough bends and brainteasers to satisfy the toughest of nitpickers but with enough wild chase and stunt sequences to satisfy the simplest and most basic needs of action-seekers.
It's directed by Steven Spielberg, who may have needed a bounce back after last year's Haley Joel Osment vehicle A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. Personally, I was fascinated by that film, but audiences and critics were lukewarm at best. Considering a few of his recent offerings have also included The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad, Spielberg was overdue in one key department: his unique talent for presenting great stories. Minority Report underscores this affirmation and it is a pure joy to watch from beginning to end.
The year is 2054, and in the District of Columbia's Pre-Crime Division, no murders have been committed in six years. This is thanks to a trio of enhanced beings known as Pre-Cogs. They are able to tap into the human psyche of the general populace and predict the victims and/or perpetrators of homicides before they occur. John Anderton (Cruise) is a detective in the division who soon finds himself on the opposite end of the system for a pre-meditated murder he has not yet committed. Complications compound when he discovers he is the killer, however he has never heard of the victim and has but a short amount of time to clear his name... even though it is inevitable he will commit the crime anyway.
Paradoxes like this are meshed with a superb sci-fi look and feel. Spielberg goes for grays and blues here, which is a nice touch, given the subtle nods to so many film noirs. And yet Minority Report overleaps works such as Chinatown (there's a scene that takes place in a greenhouse, incidentally) and Blade Runner (lots of highrise buildings and chases), because it also becomes a human drama with ethical themes and philosophical questions thrown into the mix. If future criminals are caught before they even commit their alleged crime, can they truly be considered guilty without the act having occurred? How ethical is it to keep the three Pre-Cogs in stasis, regardless of the categorical imperative benefits it provides for the greater social good? Isn't a system that eliminates almost all forms of murder better than anything that has previously existed, regardless of the cost or moral implications?
The screenplay is based on a short story by Philip K. Dick, whose writings have now become synonymous with film adaptations. All of the performances are fine, including Samantha Morton as the Pre-Cog Agatha, Max von Sydow as Cruise's superior, Director Burgess, and Colin Farrell as a Justice Department investigator, hell-bent on exposing the Pre-Crime system before it goes national.
It is Cruise, however, who owns the show and as the moody loner suddenly on the lam, he makes a riveting protagonist. From Magnolia to Eyes Wide Shut to Vanilla Sky and now Minority Report, this is the fourth consecutive Tom Cruise movie I've seen that I feel deserves a five-star rating. Each of these productions hinges on Cruise himself willing to make his Hollywood persona fallible and his characters sometimes less than heroic. Each film has offered sequences that either bend reality or shift the appearance of reality in ambiguous ways. But most importantly, each has been a stimulating yet entertaining project. Regardless of how well or how poorly it fares at the box office, Minority Report is by no means a minor achievement.
