Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)

Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)
by Steven Spielberg

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DVD Reviews of Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)

DVD Review: One of the best screen adaptations of Philip K. Dick
Summary: 5 Stars

It's bloody hard to adapt his stories to the screen, but there have been at least two adaptations that have been wildly successful as movies in their own right: Ridley Scott's _Blade Runner_ and Paul Verhoeven's _Total Recall_. I also think well of Christian Duguay's _Screamers_, although it's not of the quality (or budget) of the other two.

I've liked Tom Cruise since about 1988 or so. Before that, he seemed to be stuck playing slick, self-absorbed prettyboy hustlers. As of the excellent _Rain Man_, though, he seemed to be stretching himself, and as of _A Few Good Men_ I was persuaded that the guy had serious acting chops. He's continued since that time with a string of good movies, most of which I've enjoyed. (I especially liked _Vanilla Sky_, a remake of the excellent _Abre los Ojos_. If you've seen one, be sure to see the other sometime.)

I've also liked several (though not all) of Steven Spielberg's films. He's a talented director.

But I would never, never, never have thought that either one of these guys, let alone _both_ of them, would be involved in a screen adaptation of a Phil Dick short story. Nor would I have predicted that the result of such involvement would be anywhere near as successful as this one is.

_Minority Report_ is one of the finest Dick adaptations I've seen. It's very nearly of the quality of _Blade Runner_.

(I don't mean that it's necessarily a good translation-to-the-screen of the original story itself. Dick's original stories are all but unfilmable, and to be done 'right' they'd require an approach more like David Cronenberg's in _Naked Lunch_. I mean that it's an excellent motion picture on its own terms that successfully carries over some of the most important 'Dickian' themes and elements.)

The cinematography alone is nothing short of mesmerizing. If you like, you can turn down the sound and just _watch the pretty pictures_ for two and a half hours. Every frame is an artfully constructed composition, some of them in colors that may never have existed before.

The script is excellent. As I'm sure you know, Cruise plays John Anderton, the head of Washington, D.C.'s experimental Precrime Unit, which uses three precognitives ('precogs') to arrest people for crimes they were _about_ to commit. The script doesn't duck the metaphysical problems with this approach but indeed faces them head-on; that's a large part of both the point and the plot.

The cast is also excellent (especially Samantha Morton and Max von Sydow). Even John Williams (of whom I am not normally a huge fan) does a nice job providing a suitable score.

I won't tell you anything more on the off-chance that you haven't seen it yet. I'll just say that the thing stays on target all the way through and that some parts of it will haunt your nightmares forever afterward.

Naturally the film owes a great deal to _Blade Runner_ for its overall mood, but it's also heavily indebted to Stanley Kubrick's screen adaptation of Anthony Burgess's _A Clockwork Orange_. (I assume there are other viewers out there who caught the significance of the fact that von Sydow's character is named 'Burgess'. If you have Kubrick's film on DVD, pause the newspaper-clipping portion and read the names.)

_Very_ nicely executed. I don't normally review films that already have umpty-hundred reviews, but for this one I'm making an exception. If you like Dick and/or chilling near-future-dystopian SF films, you'll like this one even if you expect not to.

Description of Minority Report (Widescreen Edition)