Minority Report :

To start this review I just have to say that overall this was a fun movie for me, you see I am a Sci-fi nut and I do not often get to see real hard-core Sci-fi movies. There are lots of Diet coke types of Sci-fi movies out there like Star Wars, Star Trek, ET and so on and so on. Minority Report is at it's heart hard core sci-fi and I love it for that. I give this movie a 7/10 it would have scored higher but for two main reasons that I will detail under the Negatives section.

Synopsis: In the future there are no more murders, all murders are stopped before they occur by the Pre-crime unit with the help of three Pre-Cogs who can predict when murders will happen. It is an infallible system or so they thought till one of their own was accused of a crime he was yet to commit.

Positives :

1. The Future looks great and looks believable, I enjoyed this vision of fifty years from now and all the little details Spielberg litters the whole film with. I loved the personalised advertising, the DVD players of the future, all these things did not look to far away from the present and seemed achievable. The special effects were very well done and did not overwhelm the story itself.

2. The acting was top notch especially from Cruise and also from Farrell whose role strangely went out in a whimper near the end considering is part in the initial proceedings.

3. I thought the fight scenes were great and easy to follow unlike some films.

4. I loved Tom's sorting of the futuristic visions of the pre-cogs! It was like he was conducting a musical piece.

5. Where can I get a jet pack like the ones Pre-crime use in this movie?

Negatives :

1. Spielberg struggles to end this film just as he did in AI, he needs to be a bit more ruthless when ending a movie and not feel the need to tie up every single lose end. The movie starts to drag in the last 30 to 40 minutes and this is due to Spielberg's inability to leave us hanging or even to leave us with a bitter ending which I would not have minded at all. In the movie there at least 3 distinct points that the movie could have ended and it would have turned out a better movie. I would have preferred it to have ended with when John Anderton (Tom Cruise) was caught and punished for a crime he did not commit and not drag it out for the happy ending with everybody living happily ever after.

2. There is a massive hole in the plot which is almost inevitable when dealing with the reading the future and the paradoxes that occur, how can you set a person up for a future murder that only actually occurs due to the setup itself and you could not have had the knowledge for the set up because it has not been predicted yet! For those who have seen this movie can you tell me how John's boss knew to use Leo Crowe? This will make no sense to anyone who has not seen the movie and even to some who have!

3. I thought it was a bit too easy to break into Pre-crime HQ even for Anderton and then his wife breaks in as well!

In closing it was a great film that contained hard-core sci-fi themes combined with the standard cop movie theme of the hero cop being setup by his boss. The film maintains a decent pace until it loses a bit of punch towards the end.

See ya later,

Shazam!