Minority Report (Widescreen Edition) (Package may Vary)

I watched Minority Report 3 times in theater, I may watch it even more until the DVD is released. It is first the only good picture since A.I. I disliked every movie I watched this year, only Panic Room was not too bad but Minority Report like A.I. is a greatly shot motion picture. Everything is first class in the film, music by Williams creates a suspenseful and dark future atmosphere and tension like Herrmann did in Hitchcock movies. Kaminski's colours and lights are again extraordinary like in A.I., Kahn's editing is on its top since Saving Private Ryan, but I especially liked the editing on this one since there are some scenes with such a good montage which carry a lot of suspense and power mostly because of their montage. The futuristic setting is well done but not the heart of the film. The story is really strong. Spielberg chose this time a murder story with lots of thinking in it. The only bad thing about the film is that it has some irrelevant small scenes in it. I didn't read the short story of K. Dick but I'm sure Spielberg added some humour and some more action to the film just to make sure that the film makes some box office. The Anderton's Great Escape scene in the metro escape was too much irrelevant for the story, it had nice FX in it and it was a well shot action scene but it's not going well with the mood of the movie. Spoilers ahead, not read below if you didn't see the movie yet. I really think the best part of the film begins when Anderton and Agantha leave Rufus Riley's Cyberhouse and continues until Anderton kills Leo Crow and drops the gun. That 15 minute interval is a perfect example of filmmaking and all that time I never blinked. Every single frame in those 15 minutes is amazingly well shot and edited. After that when we hear the story of Sean by Agatha, that scene is also extraordinary. And off course the beginning of the movie with the first rescue is great and the screen fades to black with a vision of Agatha in the water. That 15 minutes is also a masterpiece on its own. Don't get me wrong, I like every scene in the film but those 3 intervals I mention above have the perfect sequel of scenes with driving tension and no irrelevant mood-breaking action or humour in them. For example the scene when Anderton takes Agatha from the temple is also great work of editing but after the car scene comes a humour scene where Anderton picks some clothing for Agatha and the Japanese name Anderton's eyes carry makes people laugh, but I ask why? What would happen if take the scene out. We don't need critically where and how Anderton buys or steals Agatha something to wear. Those scenes are definitely mood-breakers in the middle of 2 serious scenes and I believe that they were put for the box office there. Also Anderton's escape scene after the metro exit. We really don't need that scene. He finds himself inside of a car being built and then escapes with that car to Hineman. Come on, that scene is ok in a Lost World type comedy action movie, but not in a Sciencefiction-Drama. I like action but in this movie only the main parts I'm more interested in and those are which carry the story. Rufus T. Riley's cyberhouse scene also could be more serious but not filled with humour by Rufus himself. Anyway, in general the movie is good. The best since A.I. but I like A.I. more since it had less moodbreaker scenes than this one. I hope Catch Me If You Can will feature a more serious mood than this one. And long live Spielberg. : )

First off, when I order this movie brand new from Amazon.com, they told me that the movie would arrive in a normal postal time of 3-5 business days. It arrives in two days after I made the order. Thank you Amazon, you guys never quit when it comes to good quality, postal service. "Minority Report", Directed by Steven Spielberg, is an amazing portrayal of author Philip K. Dick's short story. Unlike "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" A tremendous look into the future where murder is stopped before it happens. Tom Cruise, "John Anderton" plays the part of a cop from the department of Precrime. The department of Precrime, is run by viewing the visions from the Precognitives. The "Precogs" can see the vision of a future murder waiting to happen. John Anderton "Tom Cruise" analyzes the visions by knowing Location, victim, perpetrator, time and date of the crime. Eventually John Anderton finds himself being a part of a murder to a man he has never meat before in his life. John ends up going on the run from Precrime as they attempt to arrest John, due to the fact of the visions of the Precogs being so perfect. John ends up meeting up with the man, and kills him; by accident though. John also ends up finding a flaw in the system or what Philip K. Dick calls, the Minority Report, where the system is said to be so perfect that unbeknownst to the operators that the system is infact human; and when it's human there's a flaw no matter how perfect the system is. Spielberg wanted this movie to be like "A.I Artificial Intelligence" but unlike Ai's warm color hue to the movie, Spielberg made the color hue for "Minority Report" to be a span of cooler colors using blues and whites. Spielberg wanted these colors to give a much colder prospect, since Minority Report has a much colder and darker story to the evolution of technology, and the flaws that it possesses. Remember something very clear that, this movie does possess language, and one small brief 20 second scene with sexual content. Spielberg normally does not allow any of that content in his films unless it's absolutely necessary. In this case it indeed was. During the search for John Anderton, Precrime ends up finding out his current location at an apartment complex. Some of the officers unleash "Spiders" which are tiny little robots that search the building the for the suspect by scanning their eyes. The spiders ends up going into each and every room, scanning all of the eyes of the individuals of the building. Eventually the spiders come across a couple on a bed. Anyway, Spielberg wanted this particular scene in the movie, to make a point in the movie, where technology had evolved to the point where it can invade our personal lives and affairs, and that we will never be able to hide from it; if it continues to evolve the way it is. The movie is in a nutshell a great action movie, with a great story, and a great message. "In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king."

If you could see the future, could you prevent it from happening? Or would events somehow conspire to make it come true? That's the question -- never quite answered -- that lies at the heart of "Minority Report," a tightly-plotted, well-acted sci-fi movie that dabbles in chronophilosophy when it isn't bouncing through intertwined murder mysteries. Steven Spielberg's direction is tight and dramatic, the actors all do excellent jobs, and the one downside is the lackluster fight scenes. In the not-too-distant future (next Sunday A.D.), murder is no longer a problem in the Washington DC area. The PreCrime Unit uses three "precogs" to predict where and when a murder will happen, and apprehend the murderers before they have a chance to kill. Ever since his son was kidnapped, Captain John Anderton (Tom Cruise) has thrown himself into his PreCrime work. His faith in it is absolute, even when the justice of it is questioned by a clever young auditer, Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell). But then one of the precogs sees a vision of Anderton committing a crime: in 36 hours, he will shoot a man he has never even met before. Like anyone else, Anderton immediately goes on the run, hoping that there is some way that the precogs could be mistaken about what will happen. His former partners and coworkers are all trying to hunt him down before he kills, but they aren't able to keep him from kidnapping the precog Agatha (Samantha Morton). Is Anderton doomed to his fate, or is the future not what PreCrime thinks it is? And who has set him up? You can't really have a story about knowing the future without delving into the whole "free will vs. determinism" debate -- are we masters of our own fate, or will the future unfold as it was foretold? While it only lightly touches on the debate itself, "Minority Report" hinges entirely on those questions -- and while obviously it can't answer them entirely, it wraps the story in twists and double-twists that swing it both ways. Spielberg's direction is tight, sleek and fast-moving, and he tosses in casually cruel touches (the eye-scanning spiders) that show the lack of real justice in PreCrime's world. He also shows that he's pretty amazing at making a murder mystery, twisting together some seemingly unconnected murders with a truly plausible precog-related motive. Everything makes sense by the end. The movie's biggest problem is that the action scenes just aren't that good. The most ludicrous one is Cruise and Farrell fistfighting in a car factory as giant deadly robot arms assemble a car AROUND CRUISE, followed by Cruise simply driving out of the building. Yeah, that won't need fuel or anything. As for Cruise, he's pretty good here. He's playing the same character he usually plays -- a pure-hearted yet tormented man fighting against the Big Bad System, and his flaws (addiction to a drug I didn't really understand) don't detract from his heroism. Honestly, I was more intrigued by Colin Farrell's subtle performance as Danny Witwer -- a quiet, religious, intense man whose sense of justice is needled by the existence of PreCrime, and whose hunt for Anderton makes him realize that there's more going on here.. And there's a ring of other excellent performances -- Samantha Morton's ethereal Agatha, Max von Sydow, Neal McDonough, and the wildly underused Kathryn Morris as Anderton's estranged wife. "Minority Report" is a solid, sleek action movie draped in a mantle of philosophical ponderings, and only the clumsy action sequences bog it down. Even if you're not a fan of Cruise, this movie should be seen.

Bought this for a class and ended up actually enjoying the movie. Gotta love tom.

great movie, taken from a Phillip K. Dick story. a writer bery far ahead of his time'

I am obsessed with this film. I've watched it five times since buying the DVD about a month ago. I confess I haven't yet checked out the supplemental material, which makes me less qualified to give a review of the complete DVD package. I want to analyze the film itself in deep detail before I watch the filmmakers tell us how they worked their magic. Let me state upfront, also, that I don't like Tom Cruise and wanted to watch the film only because it was based on a Philip K. Dick story. (I am not a huge science fiction fan but do enjoy Dick's work; he wasn't a great writer stylistically but he was a fount of interesting, peculiar and paranoid ideas.) Cruise's performance is less shallow than usual and doesn't detract from the viewing experience, which is the highest praise I'm ever likely to give him. Minority Report is flawed, yes, but engaging from start to finish. Chase scenes dominate much of the latter part of the first hour, presumably to give us an adrenaline rush in case we felt the exposition was a bit slow. I find this unnecessary, as the exposition itself is exciting indeed, but on an intellectual level. It was as if Spielberg decided he ought to have some action scenes that he could put into the trailer in hopes of attracting a broader audience. This is primarily a metaphysical story, and--to some degree, especially in the scenes involving the abducted precog, Agatha--an emotional one. (The one line of dialogue retained from the original short story was the remark that the guilt of the pre-criminals was a "metaphysical fact".) Also, the endless repetition of the lines "Everybody runs" and "Can you see?" seem like transparent attempts to create for the film catch phrases which the producers hoped would, like Schwartzenegger's "I'll be back", insinuate themselves into the popular lexicon. But these calculated attempts to improve the film's box office don't detract, not too much. The chase scenes, for example, are interesting as they reveal yet more technological wonders we haven't yet seen in this believable future world. Some spoilers are coming, so stop reading if you haven't seen the film yet. The murdered-child element was wholly a creation of the screenwriters (Spielberg probably had some input here, too--kids figure prominently in so many of his films) but it adds depth to the story. Though the fact that Crow, Anderton's predicted victim, isn't really a pedophile (the whole thing is a set-up, to provoke Anderton into murderous rage) drains away some of the emotional impact. Is Crow torn between wanting to survive while also feeling that maybe he deserves to die? No, it all turns moot. Some material has peculiar resonance for me, but this will not be so for other viewers. I have recurring dreams, ones which have a sped-up feel that looks very much like a DVD on fast-forward (and not entirely dissimilar to the look-and-feel of the precog's visions), in which I am a slave being tortured. (Think it's time for me to find another job?) The way the pre-criminals are held in the containment facility--with their bodies in stasis, but their minds "busy busy busy" as the jailkeeper says--reminds me strikingly of those dreams. Spielberg's films always have happy endings, and this is no exception. Cruise's resurrection is inconsistent with the impression given before, that "haloing" is permanent, but at least we have the satisfaction of seeing the villain get his comeuppance. This isn't an action film. Philosophical and religious themes abound in Philip K. Dick's stories. This is the first Hollywood movie to truly reflect Dick's vision, a film which can rightfully claim to be an adapation of his narratives rather than--like Blade Runner and Total Recall, not bad films but not great either--merely "inspired by" them. Of course the film is much more detailed than the short story, but this is one of those rare cases where the original is improved upon. Those characters which were added by the screenwriters were added for good reasons, ones which advance the plot. Many here at amazon have criticized the art direction; I say it's superb. Notice the repetition of underwater sequences--the pool where Anderton loses his son, the freezing bathtub where he hides from the spyders, the murder of Anne Lively...even the Fox logo at the beginning looks underwater, and has the same pale blue glassy look as the computer systems seen throughout.

I've been debating about whether this movie was better than Oblivion with Tom Cruise; I've determined that Minority Report is 1 star better than Oblivion. The story for Minority Report was unique and cool to watch but it didn't appear realistic to me. I never felt emotionally invested in any of the characters and the idea of the cogs was silly. I didn't know Steven Spielberg was the producer until the opening credits, and now I wonder why this movie wasn't that good. The style of the scenes and the perspectives of the shots do feel like a Spielberg film, but this didn't make the movie any better for me. It's worth watching, but worth skipping if you're on a budget.

When this came out, it was a big hit but under appreciated for what ground it broke in the world of movies. The technological vision alone is worthy of high praise for its sensitivity to evolution in the fields of computing, automotive transportation, law enforcement and robotics. But the true mastery of film production comes with the seamless weaving of intense and extremely complex plot twists with an easy to assimilate format to the audiences. This is an extraordinary story with unusual abundances of turns, tropes and surprises. Cruise delivers a highly charged emotional and powerful performance-- one of his best pictures as well, perhaps since "The Color of Money". Spielberg makes an erratic and chaotic adventure into a smooth ride without over saturating the senses or making it hard to keep up, just to understand what's going on within the character relationships or subtleties of the ironical storyline. The theme of the Civil War is not often cited by reviewers but the motion picture begins with a pre-crime which centers around Lincoln's eye sockets (a pre-crime murderer is involved in the removing of Lincoln's eyes from a cutout which relates to his child's school project). The end shows us Von Sydow's character accepting and then using a 'Civil War General's' handgun, which has 5 gold plated bullets which are described as ending the suffering of the Civil War. There is the famous meeting of the 5 tribes which helped formulate the US Constitution and Lincoln is quoted within the film as suspending habeas corpus within his war. Lincoln is very often cited as the most 'psychic' of Presidents. This reviewer has maintained a Lincoln theme to "Back to the Future" as well (see lincolnwasadummy.com). We are clearly missing something inside the minds of the production team here as it regards the Lincoln era of history, but it makes for even more deep analysis and interest to this masterful movie maker coming out with one of his most brilliant and daring movies. Aside from any of that, this is just a highly entertaining and fast paced film with plenty for all ages, all genres (from horror to crime to action to sci fi to thriller to mystery to even some comedy). Absolutely 5 stars. This film is aging well and has not lost any of its edge, even after 17 years. Astounding movie making!