Minority Report (2002) Review

THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.

If you knew something bad was gonna happen, would you really take the chance to stop it?


PLOT


Based on Philip K Dick’s novel, Minority Report takes place in a fictional 2054 where three clairvoyants aka Precogs are used to prevent murders from happening the ‘Precrime’ program and officers are tasked to analyze the visions to determine where homicides would happen and to apprehend future perpetrators. The would be killers would also be placed in an electric induced coma and the program has been a success for the past six years. The story follows Chief John Anderton who has been grieving over his son Sean being abducted and never found. Department of Justice agent Danny Witwer wants to audit the precrime operation with the intent to uncover flaws within the operation. One of the precogs named Agatha has a flashback of a woman drowning as Anderton watches. He then looks through her other memories where a recently saved Anne Lively (Jessica Harper) has gone missing and the file to the vision is missing. He even discovers a new vision that he will murder a man he’s never met named Leo Crow (Mike Binder), leading to him going on the run and Witwer beginning a manhunt. On the run, he meets geneticist Iris Hineman (Lois Smith) whose research led to the creation of the ‘Precrime’ program being created. Upon meeting her, she shares with him that precogs gain their abilities in the womb as a result of brain damage caused by parents’ addiction to the drug ‘neuroin’. She even reveals at least one can see visions different from others, minority reports, but the discrepancies are kept from the record book to maintain the reputation of infallibility. After having an eye transplant from underground surgeon Solomon P Eddie (Peter Stormare) to evade retinal scanners all over the city, kidnaps Agatha who is the strongest of the three, but it shuts down the hive mind the Precrime program depends on. He doesn’t find the minority report that leads to Crow’s death, but downloads the memories of Anne’s death. When he does find Crow, he sees his hotel room to have pictures of children. When catching one of Sean, he accuses him of killing his only child and nearly avenges him until deciding to place him under arrest. After making this decision, Crow claims he was hired to plant the photos and was promised for his family to be paid if Anderton kills him. As John still refuses, Crow kills himself in a manner similar to the vision. He then tips off Witwer to investigate Anne’s case and find discrepancies that’ll suggest she’s been murdered. He does report this to the Director of Precrime, Lamar Burgess, but he surprisingly kills him with Anderton’s gun in the clear of offline Precogs. Anderton does try taking Agatha hiding in the home of his wife Lara, but she alerts Lamar, thinking he will help him. They get taken in by a tactical team and John is arrested for both deaths of Crow & Witwer. Lara would discuss her husband’s concerns about Anne to Burgess, who tries denying recollection of her but accidentally mentions she drowned, which is something she didn’t say. Just as she gets suspicious, she breaks John out and he tracks Burgess down at a banquet celebrating Precrime’s national launch. He confronts him that he’s concealing the memory that Anne is Agatha’s biological mother who wanted to regain custody of her after getting clean from neuroin. Wanting to preserve Precrime, he hired someone to kill her, knowing Precrime will intervene, only to assassinate her personally. And once John began to investigate, he arranged for Crow to pose as Sean’s abductor just to provoke him to kill. He plays the vision of Anne’s death at the banquet which quickly shocks those attending. When another red ball report comes in to detect a future murder, it claims Burgess will kill him. John clarifies his only options: sparing him which would shut down Precrime or kill him in order to validate the program. Unable to decide, he begs for forgiveness before killing himself. With this fallout, Precrime gets shut down and Precogs get to live peacefully in an undisclosed location while all prisoners from the program are pardoned/released. The film would end with John & Lara reconciling and preparing to have another child together.


THOUGHTS


When going into a new century, you have to wonder if veterans can catch up with the times. It’s not really a surprise when seeing Steven Spielberg continue to do just that after AI Artificial Intelligence. The whole time, I was blown away with this unorthodox narrative. The combined visual effects and production design instantly succeed in making 2054 feel immersive, Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography is so sharp that you feel all the intensity that ensues from each chase sequence. And John Williams’ score is already a win for making the viewing experience as captivating as his past sets. The idea of living in a world where psychics prevent murder on behalf of a police force is hard to not be intrigued because we all wish we can stop the bad. The problem is that it brings in the debate of what is more important between determinism & free will. If the future really is predetermined as shown here, there might not be a real form of free will because we’ll be stopped from making our own choices and think for ourselves. If we lose those aspects, then we end humanity as we know it and no one really wants that no matter how much you see the greater good for something ahead of the curve. As Lamar Burgess, actor Max Von Sydow portrays this character as one who does a big value of something that can be controlled, but his desperation to keep things the way he prefers is what leads to his downfall. And what he wasn’t prepared for is to be outsmarted by someone who saw the bigger picture. Tom Cruise gives an all timer of a performance as John Anderton because he was a guy who was visibly insecure on how to cope with a loss that wasn’t his fault and his guilty conscience is what led to him joining Precrime as his desire is to undo what broke him. The fact he goes out of his way to prove his innocence and find the bigger picture of things is what shows us how important free will is all along. He is able to save himself by saving those who don’t ask for the lives they had and revert back to what life was which is never easy but important either way, if we gotta remember some old things are better than new. Agatha was one of those people that needed to be saved as Samantha Morton presents her as one who is quite powerful for what she can do, but is so emotionally drained that it’s all she can do due to being used as a vessel like pawn. She & the twins she was paired with were exploited for six years with no chance to live their lives, and John was able to free them once he dug deep in the rabbit hole. At the same time, I think Lara did the right thing leaving him because he needed space to help him accept what happened wasn’t his fault. Kathryn Morris did a good job portraying her as one who does the benefits of new things like Precrime, but knew when to point out what was wrong, hence helping her husband escape. Because she always knew how innocent he was, it was easy for her to help him set things right as she doesn’t doubt his good intentions. The fact they got to rekindle things is another way to prove our own decisions are what make our journeys all worthwhile. Last but not least, Colin Farrell was compelling in his own time as Witwer. Due to being younger than John, he is quite ambitious to be more decisive, but also takes the time to see whatever flaw that is possible to make things perfect. He doesn’t hesitate taking a step back because he needs to make sure it’s all worth it. Even though his consistency got him killed, his decisions were still worth making since it led to Anderton saving humanity as a whole. If he can do that with his own thinking, then we can do what we set our mind to. While I have been saying this movie is better than I remember it for, there are still some things that don’t make much sense upon rewatching. From the top, why does the secret lover to the wife of Howard Marks’ wife scope the place out? That makes him look all the more suspicious before Howard spots him, which makes me say he doesn’t do a better job in covering his tracks for an affair than Burgess does with murder. He honestly could’ve waited in the car for him to go to work if he doesn’t want to get caught. And how did the first Precrime team make it to the roof on time without jet packs? John got a head start, so it’s odd we don’t see them get there so quietly. And if we’re gonna get into meta false advertising, how about the fact there was an ad of a woman saying her sexual assault was prevented due to Precrime, only for John to debunk that when Witwer asks if it were possible? I mean that’s a terrible way to go about a campaign. So when the District of Columbia is the safest place in America, that doesn’t sound true when robberies and assault are still a factor. It is an interesting idea for ads to read someone’s eyeballs when people are passing by, but how can this manage to read thousands of people daily at a mall? There’s multiple in one hallway, but it doesn’t look like enough to lure everyone that would be interested. The craziest thing that the public pool was extremely crowded when Sean gets taken, so there should’ve been a handful of cameras to have seen who took him. And how come it isn’t possible for Agatha to tell John it’s a hoax for meeting Crow? If she can set up multiple distractions when escaping the mall, that should’ve been possible. Witwer was also on top of himself when it came to looking for discrepancies, but there is no real point for him to tell Burgess of the evidence he found of Anne, other than an excuse for the twist to happen. He didn’t even look at previsions in advance before this, which is so out of character for him if he like John is all about picking up on the little things. Lastly, how does it really go national for Precrime? Are they gonna scavenge pregnant junkies all over the United States and see which is clairvoyant? I mean it’s kinda crazy for this leap of action to not be explored without knowing the schematics. Ignore this, then you’ll still have a real good time. In conclusion, Minority Report earns it place to be identified as one Spielberg’s many gems for having another crack at the expanding the horizon in terms of thinking outside the box. If you like these kind of sci fi flicks, see this now.