FILM: Minority Report (2002)

Disclaimer: This review is of the movie and not the recent FOX show. In fact, I decided to do this as kind of an apology to the movie on account of the show being quite a let down.

“Careful, Chief. Dig up the past, all you get is dirty.” – Gideon

Is free will an illusion? What must be sacrificed for a world without murder? How cool does Tom Cruise look as he jumps off a ten story building, onto a jetpack-propelled pursuer? These are some of the questions that the Steven Spielberg directed modern sci-fi noir tries to answer (Just for the record, ‘undeniably’ is the answer to that last one).

Washington D.C., 2054 A.D. Thanks to the government’s experimental PreCrime program, murders in the city are at zero percent.

Jon Anderton (Cruise) is the lead detective of this new unit. He does not let his despondent past get in the way of his job, which is to stop murders before they occur.

Everybody runs, however, and Chief Anderton proves to be no different when he witnesses himself committing a future murder and has to go on the lam.

Scott Frank’s script impeccably deals with the moral dilemma faced by a post-PreCrime society. After all, the future murderers being arrested have committed no crime.

If there is one thing that sci-fi fans love more than anything, it’s world-building. Give us a real, believable universe in which our imaginations can run wild and unbound and we will give you all our money.

This is what Minority Report excels at. Aside from a few futuristic set pieces, Washington D.C. looks pretty much like it does today. Much of the technology used in the film has a practicality to it that mirrors present day life.

The film exists in a sweet spot between over-the-top and understated futuristic machines and devices which really seals in the realism. Additionally, make sure and keep a noir checklist handy as the use of grey character motivations, a dark and complex mystery and high contrast lighting, amongst other elements of that perennial genre, are present here.

Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner has been the quintessential sci-fi noir masterpiece since the mid ‘80s, and rightfully so. Minority Report, however, with its naturalistic portrayal of the future and hard-boiled elements, is our generation’s response to it.