Friday, June 21, 2002 | 10:07 a.m.
'Minority Report'
Grade: ***
Starring: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Peter Stormare and Max Von Sydow.
Screenplay: Scott Frank and Jon Cohen.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Rated: PG-13 for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content.
Running time: 145 minutes.
Movie times: http://www.vegas.com/movies/
There's much to like in Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Philip K. Dick's "Minority Report," but as is the case with most movie adaptations of Dick's fiction, these things have little to do with the story.
I loved the way Colin Farrell kissed a medal hanging around his neck (presumably a St. Christopher) every time he had a brush with death. I liked the way the holographic advertisements tailored themselves to the user, via a retinal scan. And I loved a scene in which Tom Cruise's character is doing some fast thinking, and a playground merry-go-round spins behind him, mirroring what's happening inside his head.
Internet news group geeks will no doubt love "Minority Report," using it to slam Spielberg's previous excursion into hard core science fiction, "A.I." But let's consider these people (mostly male, ages 18 to 34) for a moment. They love "Reservoir Dogs" above all things, especially over the Martin Scorcese films they haven't seen. They're on a first-name basis with visual effects supervisors and fight choreographers. They review trailers.
"Minority Report" is right up their alley: It matches Hollywood's richest geek to sci fi's star prophet of urban decay.
To that portion of the audience, "Minority Report" is the best kind of "meets" movie: "Memento" meets "Blade Runner" is the last variant I've heard. They would have said that no matter what kind of film Spielberg made, but in this case, it turns out that they're right: "Minority Report," while expertly made and very entertaining, bears little of Spielberg's soul.
Anybody from Christopher Nolan to Ridley Scott could have made "Minority Report," if they knew the right visual effects supervisor and fight choreographer.
But Spielberg made this film, and so I spent most of it looking for him. Lots of critics hate Spielberg, but I'm not one of them -- who could hate the man who made "Jaws," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "E.T." on the basis of "Hook" or "The Lost World?"
Spielberg tells stories like few others, develops memorable characters and makes you jump straight out of your seat every now and again. It's frustrating to watch him rein in his natural tendencies in "Minority Report," but not upsetting: As I said, it's an expertly made film, even if it doesn't quite seem like his.
The story, similar to most of Dick's stories, is a high-tech version of a simple moral dilemma: Would you change the future? In the year 2054, thanks to three clairvoyants, we can, and we do.
Cruise plays John Anderton, the chief detective of Pre-Crime, an experimental unit built around the psychics. His unit takes the predictions of the clairvoyants (the way they "conduct" these visions is a high point of the film) and find murderers before they kill. They've created a zero-homicide rate in Washington, D.C., and the world is next.
Cruise treats the role as he does any other -- with deep brooding, the occasional forced smile and his patented hollow-chested roar. He's even less sympathetic here than he was in the terrible "Vanilla Sky," and seeing as he's the primary human factor in "Minority Report," you spend much of the film trying to look around him at Spielberg's cool world.
The production designer on "Minority" is Alex McDowell, and he really earns Spielberg's trust. You can trace a line from every fantastic invention of "Minority" to an emerging technology of today; Spielberg hired a think tank of urban planners to help create the look of the film. And Janusz Kaminski makes it look as filthy and real as Ridley Scott's Los Angeles in "Blade Runner." With different casting, this could have been a benchmark thriller.
But I'm being unfair to a film I enjoyed. I got a kick out of a "Taxi Driver"-like sequence shot from the ceiling of a tenement, and a scene in which the psychic Agatha (Samantha Morton) uses her gifts to help Anderton avoid capture. If only Hollywood employed a few psychics of its own, they'd know in advance what doesn't quite work.
Maybe they'd even be able to humble Cruise by telling him that, someday, he won't be able to coast on his star power.
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