Minority Report

I see movies from the future. DARE DEVIL–So this one’s finally coming out, eh? Well, I’m not so sure it’s gonna be worth it. Sure, this is just kind of a teaser with flashes from the movie, but it really doesn’t look like there’s very much to it. And, although I do kind of like Ben Affleck, I’m not so sure that he’s the superhero type. Shame, though. Coulda been cool.

SIGNS–Now we’re finally getting more dialogue and plot and it STILL LOOKS AWESOME!! I can’t wait for this one.

GOLDMEMBER–This one keeps getting longer, too. (Huh–hu-huh.) And, of course, it looks hilarious. And Fred Savage is in it! Weird. I thought that guy’s career had dried up as soon as “Working” went off the air. But, if Austin is actually making fun of the Limp Bizkit song by saying “mole’ mole’ mole’ mole’” when Fred’s character shows up, THAT’S MY JOKE!!! I’ve been doing that since the first day I heard that stupid-ass song. Oh well. I guess I’ll let Mike have it…for a price.

SOLARIS–Already? It’s just a teaser, but still. Seems kinda early. I can’t wait for it, but I’m not so sure that today’s audience will have the patience if they stay faithful to the story and feel of the original. But with Soderbergh at the helm, Cameron in the producer’s chair and Clooney in the captain’s chair, it’s sure to be a hit.

Now, for the movie that I predict will be a big box office draw for a while.

Hey, I never said I was a Pre-Cog.

In about 45 years we’re going to be able to catch murderers before they do their deed. Oh, we won’t be able to see the future ourselves, but three gifted (tortured?) souls called Pre-Cogs will. What we will be able to do is tap into their brains to see what they see.

That’s where Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) comes in. He and his crack team of cops find clues in the visions and figure out exactly when and where it’s going to happen, run to the location and catch the perp before he perps.

On the surface, John seems like he’s got it all together. He’s the leader of the Pre-Crime team in Washington D.C. (where they’re testing it out…it hasn’t gone national yet–and there’s got to be a different name for the tense I’m using right now: Future-Present Perfect?) and probably the best detective in the business of catching people in the act before they’re even sure that they’re going to do it. That first scene of him virtually sliding pictures around the investigation screens is pretty amazing. (Except for the fact that it’s Tom Cruise, but I digress.)

But all is not well in John’s world. Six years ago his son, Sean, was kidnapped and most likely killed at a pool. He’s still haunted by the ghost of his son and the fact that he could have prevented it from happening. It didn’t help matters when his wife left him not too long after the murder. He keeps thinking, if only they had had this technology back then his son would still be alive. So he’s out to save everyone. But he’s doing it with the help of drugs and a bunch of home movies he made in happier times.

John’s superior, Director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) is one of the originators of the Pre-Crime Unit and a good friend and mentor to John. But the Pre-Crime Unit is in trouble and it’s up to the two of them to get it more respect so that people will vote for it to go nationwide within the year. Detective Ed Witwer (Colin Farrell from Tigerland and Hart’s War) is out to prove that it is unconstitutional and immoral to catch people before they commit a crime. Maybe they were going to do it at one point, but something changes their mind? Or maybe the Pre-Cogs were just plain wrong?

When the ball drops on John and he the Pre-Cogs see him killing a man he’s never met, he realizes that something may be wrong with the system. Even though there hasn’t been a murder in DC in five years, maybe they’re putting too many people away.

But there’s no time to think about that. Because now John has to run from the people he once lead.

Spielberg has created a pretty amazing world for our future. He probably needed to make this a little further than 40-some years in the future, but I was totally sucked into the beauty of this world. The cites are totally industrial with tracks carrying little Tron-like cars around and the buildings go up forever. (And who told them that they could use the Slave 1 as a police ship?!) But there are still entire stretches where there are no buildings for miles: it’s just pure trees. It looked like it could have taken place in the same world that he created for A.I. The only problem I had with the future is the amount of commercials and how scary they get. (“John Anderton! You need a Guinness!”) I really hope that we aren’t this inundated with personal commercials like that. I would have to shoot myself. The scene in the Gap is particularly suicide-inducing.

This future world makes me think that Steve and Tom were both lonely for Kubrick when they made this one. It doesn’t really feel like a Kubrick film (because it actually moves quickly), but it looks like one. It’ll be interesting to see if Spielberg’s next one (Catch Me If You Can) looks like his last two.

Spielberg’s obsession with religion is still present. (With the help, of course, of writers Scott Frank (Get Shorty and Out Of Sight) and John Cohen and the writer of the original short story, Philip K. Dick) Witwer is a devout Catholic (kissing his rosary and everything) and he is opposed to using the Pre-Cogs for this sort of thing. (They’re not really treated like humans at all. More like tools.) But the people who work at the Unit treat that as their religion. They call the room where they house the Pre-Cogs “The Temple” and they treat them like deities. (Especially Wally (Daniel London), the Pre-Cogs’ caretaker–he’s the only one who is allowed to touch or talk to them.) This point is actually belabored a bit. And then there’s Max von Sydow playing yet another character who is kind of balled up in religion. But that’s not a complaint…he’s amazing as usual.

Of course eyes are used for their imagery. How could they not be? Isn’t that the whole point of precognition? Some kind of third eye that allows these people to see into the future? Listen for how many times the word “eye” is used.

It’s a very suspenseful movie with lots of eye-candy and some pretty good acting (although Tom is about as bland as always) and, generally, I really enjoyed it a lot. It was very good…to a point.

Here’s the problem:

It’s predictable as hell. WAAAAYYYYY too predictable. If it had ended when it should have, it would have had a very cool Seven-esque ending where there are still questions to talk about on the way out of the theatre. But Steve goes on, just like he did with A.I. It turns into a very typical whodunit where we knew whodunit about an hour before. (But we saw that coming when we heard the Pre-Cogs’ names, right? Arthur, Dashiell and Agatha.) And just once I would like the whole plot to not be given to the good guys by the bad guy slipping while he’s talking to them. Too fucking easy. We have to make it hard on them. Don’t just GIVE it to them.

But really that’s the only real problem I had with it. The acting was uniformly good (Tom was, of course, Tom…but at least he didn’t have any lllllllooooooonnnnngggg Kubrickian pauses in this one.) And Colin Farrell was very good as the guy who is after John and his job. Very conniving little asshole. The story was pretty tight…not too many glaring holes that I could see. There were a few points where things were maybe too well spelled out to us, but, I forget, audiences are dumb these days.

And how ’bout that supporting cast, huh? Samantha Morton (Agatha), Peter Stormare (a psycho doctor), Tim Blake Nelson (the wheel chair-bound warden), Mike Bender (the man John is supposed to kill) and Jessica Harper (the dead woman). And watch for Spencer Treat Clark (the kid from Gladiator, Unbreakable and Arlington Road) as Sean, William Mapother (Tom’s cousin) as a hotel clerk, Jessica Capshaw (Kate’s daughter) as one of John’s crew and, most surprisingly, George D. Wallace as Chief Justice Pollard. Now, you may not recognize his name…I sure as hell didn’t, but he’s one of Spielberg’s heroes. He was Commander Cody in the old Radar Men From The Moon serials from the 50s! Where he dug him up from I don’t know, but that’s pretty damn cool.

And I swear Matt Damon has a cameo in it as the “third guy in the room.” The one with the sunglasses. (Makes sense. He was supposed to have Colin Farrell’s role.)

But the thing that struck me head on was something that was probably totally coincidental since (I believe) Philip K. Dick was dead before John Lennon died: Was there anything to the fact that Sean was the name of John’s son? And that it was Sean who was killed instead of John? Now, I don’t think the writers wanted Sean Lennon to die instead of John, but it’s an interesting question. The movie may be about how government and technology can go too far and how our civil liberties should not be taken for granted on the surface(are you listening Georgie?), but down deep, and this is what makes this such a great sci-fi story…because it’s about something deeper than just the future, it’s about losing someone you love and how someone deals with such a traumatic loss. Are the people we lose still watching over us to make sure that we’re ok? Are they helping to manipulate our world in order to help us?

I can’t answer that and neither can Spielberg or Dick, but we can all hope. And we can try to move on and make our lives as good as possible to make their memories live on and do all that we can to do what would have made them proud.

This review is dedicated to the memory of Daniel London. (Not the actor in this movie. Totally different guy.) I never knew him, but, if his brothers are any indication, he must have been a great guy and he would have loved watching this movie with them.

And, Jon, I know you’ll be preachin’ real soon. Hopefully I’ll be right behind you.

Stay hard, brutha.