Minority Report Card
July 1st, 2002
Started out as an A+ but ended up with a C-
At the beginning of the Minority Report, I gave the movie a full suspension of disbelief. It had me there. And then somewhere in the middle it turned into a Tom Cruise movie. In other words, I began to remember how much I can’t stand Tom Cruise movies. In every one of his films, without any exception, you can be sure that two things will happen. Vanilla Sky actually gets these two apparent contractual preconditions out of the way in the very first scene. All Cruise movies contain the following dramatic peaks:
- a scene with Tom running
- a scene with Tom getting upset, yelling, and/or kicking things
I’m serious. Go back in your movie catalog and try to prove me wrong. The man is a two trick pony (well, I guess he gets a third trick for his looks). The scenes with his son—a pivotal point of the plot, by the way—were just unbelievable. And the way the plot moved almost begrudgingly along with the story, by the last hour, I felt like I was watching Mission Impossible 3. Still, I can’t help but to recommend this film, if only to see an aging Spielberg tackling the Sci-Fi genre in a way that’s probably, despite all its apparent flaws, still on par with movies like the Matrix.
Oh, and seeing Colin Farrell as the nemesis in this movie got me all excited about seeing him play Bullseye in the upcoming Daredevil movie (QuickTime trailer now available).