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Release Date: April 20th, 2010 Movie Release Year: 2002

Minority Report

Overview -

For six years, Washington D.C. has been murder free thanks to astounding technology which identifies killers before they commit their crime. But when the chief of the Precrime Unit (Cruise) is himself accused of a future murder, he has just 36 hours to discover who set him up- or he'll fall victim to the "perfect" system he helped create. It's a mind-blowing action thriller that's such an achievement it "reminds us why we go to the movies in the first place" (Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times).

OVERALL:
Rating Breakdown
STORY
VIDEO
AUDIO
SPECIAL FEATURES
Tech Specs & Release Details
Technical Specs:
BD-50 Dual-Layer Disc (both)
Video Resolution/Codec:
1080p/AVC MPEG-4
Length:
146
Aspect Ratio(s):
2.40:1
Audio Formats:
Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Subtitles/Captions:
Spanish Subtitles
Special Features:
Deconstructing Minority Report
Release Date:
April 20th, 2010

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Ranking:

"The future is so much more interesting than the past, don't you think?"

Like far too many of Steven Spielberg's films, the 2002 sci-fi thriller 'Minority Report' is about 3/4 of a great movie, followed by 1/4 of a pretty bad one. The director has an infuriating habit of developing thematically rich and intriguing concepts, only to let them fall completely apart in the last reel. More than anything else, this stems from his overwhelming need to force a happy ending onto every movie, and tie every plot thread up in a tidy little bow, even when the attempt to do so starkly flies in the face of narrative logic or coherent storytelling.

Still, there's no denying that the set-up for this one is pretty terrific. In the future year of 2054, the murder rate in Washington D.C. has plummeted to near-nothing thanks to the establishment of the PreCrime task force. The discovery of three psychic individuals called "precogs" has led to the development of a sophisticated computer interface that can tap into their visions and allow the police to see murders before they happen. Premeditated killings can be detected well in advance, while crimes of passion may occur more suddenly. With enough lead time, the PreCrime unit can prevent murders from occurring and arrest the would-be killers for theoretical crimes almost performed. While this may present a host of civil rights issues for the lawyers to sort out (Can you really imprison someone for a crime that didn't happen?), the PreCrime cops are only interested in protecting the public.

Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) has a personal need to enforce this sort of justice. His own young son was kidnapped and presumably murdered years earlier, and the perpetrator never found. That tragedy caused his marriage to fall apart, and left him with a secret drug habit. Now, he exerts all his energies to prevent the same from happening to anyone else. He's proud of his work, and absolutely convinced of its moral necessity. But that all comes crashing down the day that the precogs display a vision of Anderton himself killing a man he's never met or even heard of. Before his colleagues can arrest him, Anderton goes on the run in order to personally investigate what that vision actually meant, and whether the PreCrime system is really as reliable as he once believed.

'Minority Report' was a big budget sci-fi picture by Steven Spielberg. Its production values and visual effects were impeccable at the time, and have held up fairly well in the eight years since. Spielberg crafts a detailed and visually arresting depiction of the future, complete with fancy cutting-edge tech (Anderton "conducts" images from the precog visions within a slick holographic touch-screen interface) and some amusing satirical elements. (Everywhere that people walk, they're bombarded with personalized spam advertisements that follow them from building to building.) One of my favorite bits involves sonic stun rifles that can knock a target across the room, but must be manually flipped and cocked to recharge after each shot. It's hard to describe, but looks really neat in action, and is the sort of pragmatic working detail that most fantasists would ignore.

Even so, like most "near future" movies, 'Minority Report' has its cornier aspects. I have a hard time believing that in a mere 50 years, the entire metro transit system for a big city like Washington will be completely overhauled such that computer-controlled mag-lev cars will race along pre-programmed tracks up and down buildings like some elaborate Hot Wheels playset. The PreCrime cops also zip through the city in solid fuel jetpacks that look like they were borrowed from 'The Rocketeer'. While jetpacks like this have been a staple of science fiction since the 'Buck Rogers' serials, they still inevitably beg the question of how a pilot would avoid burning his ass off. Seriously, there are open flames shooting straight down the pilots' legs. It just looks a little ridiculous in an otherwise serious-minded movie like this. Especially so when Anderton hops onto the back of another character and hitches a ride; somehow, he doesn't notice those flames blasting directly into his midsection.

Spielberg orchestrates several elaborately-choreographed yet utterly chaotic action sequences that are impressive to watch even if they don't always hold up to logical scrutiny. A chase through an auto assembly line looks like it was built from almost the exact same CG template as the droid factory sequence in the same year's 'Attack of the Clones'. It's dynamic and intense, but the payoff is kind of ludicrous.

For some reason, the director has cast Tim Blake Nelson, Peter Stormare, and Lois Smith – all actors known for their eccentric performances – in supporting roles, and instructed them to play each as off-the-wall kooky as possible. Any one of these characters individually might have added some color to the movie. The combination of all three is just bizarre and tonally discordant.

Of course, such small failings are forgivable so long as the story is interesting and the movie works overall. For a long time, 'Minority Report' really crackles with drama, suspense, stimulating ideas, and kinetic action. It seems like the perfect fusion of popcorn blockbuster and weighty, old-school intellectual science fiction. (Roger Ebert even named it his favorite movie of the year.)

Sadly, things start to fall apart after a couple of badly-scripted plot developments. In the first, Anderton manages to sneak back in to the precog crime lab solely because the police department forgot to update its security system settings after he'd been declared a fugitive. It's funny, but at my current job, as soon as an employee is fired or leaves the company, all of his security access cards are canceled before he can even leave the building. Yet this high-tech police squad is too incompetent to do the same. The stupidity of this is even further compounded by a silly scene where Anderton chases a pair of human eyeballs rolling down a hallway like marbles, when they should squish and splat upon hitting the floor. Did someone really script this?

Worse, later on there's a big shocking plot twist that's been copied line-for-line from 'L.A. Confidential'. I'm sure that Spielberg and screenwriter Scott Frank were hoping that the audience for their movie wouldn't have seen that earlier film (or read the novel it's based on). That may even be true for the most part; but anyone who is familiar with 'L.A. Confidential' will find the shameless plagiarism pretty galling.

Even that wouldn't be so terrible if only Spielberg knew when to end the damn story. About two hours in, the movie has what would amount to a darkly ironic yet fitting conclusion. Unfortunately, Spielberg just can't let things go there. His obsessive need to give every story a happy ending drives him to tack an additional 25 minutes onto the picture, in which events spiral absurdly out of control and everything comes up roses for our hero against all reason and narrative sense. What's wrong with a happy ending, you ask? Nothing, if it makes sense. This one doesn't. Forgive the possible spoiler, but the movie is nearly a decade old by this point. No proper analysis of 'Minority Report' can ignore that Anderton's actions would have the direct and immediate result of causing the murder rate in the city to skyrocket. A turn of events like that actually could have been used for some effective dramatic irony, if in any way acknowledged within the story. That apparently never occurred to Spielberg. So long as his characters are happy in the moment, then the whole world must be a better place.

Honestly, I think that Spielberg was just the wrong director to adapt a short story by the brilliant but undeniably nutty Philip K. Dick. The author's stories are filled with inexplicable surrealism, ambiguity, and irony. Those things simply do not exist in Spielberg's cinematic universe. The director has an abiding need to explain away any trace of ambiguity. (Witness the insufferably tedious ending to 'A.I.', with its annoying Explainer character who's brought in to sit the protagonist down and feed him a bunch of ridiculous pseudoscience gobbedlygook about the "space time continuum.") Even his best films are safe and conventional, and completely devoid of irony. He's just not the right man for this job.

There's a popular theory that the entire last act of 'Minority Report' is a dream, based on a single offhand line of dialogue delivered by the Tim Blake Nelson character. I don't buy it. Spielberg is too much of a literalist. If the ending of this movie were a dream, he'd have a character step in and tell the audience in no uncertain terms that it's a dream. As much as this theory might make the end of the movie more palatable, there's just no evidence in the film itself to support it.

With all that said, despite its sometimes significant failings, 'Minority Report' is still an intriguing and often satisfying sci-fi thriller with more ideas rattling around its rickety construction than the typical summer blockbuster. It just never completely comes together like it should. If you can forgive that, the film has a lot to offer.

The Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats

'Minority Report' was originally a co-production between 20th Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures. Fox claimed the theatrical distribution rights, while Dreamworks took the home video rights. The film has been released on Blu-ray as a 2-disc set by Paramount Home Entertainment, the current distributor for Dreamworks. Disc 1 contains just the movie. Disc 2 has the bonus features. The new Photoshop cover art they've chosen is pretty hideous. However, for what it's worth, the image works reasonably well with the lenticular 3-D slipcover.

The movie disc has one annoying trailer before the main menu.

Video Review

Ranking:

'Minority Report' is a highly stylized movie that was photographed to stand out from the usual sci-fi eye candy. This is not a bright or cartoonishly colorful movie like 'The Fifth Element'. Spielberg and his cinematographer Janusz Kaminski originally used a "bleach bypass" process to emphasize stark, blown-out contrasts, gritty film grain, and a deliberately skewed color balance. The look is effective in some portions of the movie and annoying in others.

The Blu-ray comes from an all-new film-to-video transfer supervised by Spielberg and Kaminski, in which they used the latest digital tools to fine-tune the picture to their liking. The result is true to the original intention, but helps to bring out more detail than previous video transfers. The stylization of the image prevents it from ever being the sharpest or clearest picture you'll see in high definition, but the 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 transfer is still fairly sharp and nicely detailed. Some scenes are better than others.

The disc is presented in the movie's original 2.40:1 theatrical aspect ratio. Colors and flesh tones look sickly and bleached, as they're supposed to. Contrasts bloom and shadows fall off to absolute black quickly. Yet shadow detail is visible when it's dramatically important. The picture is often very grainy, and sometimes that grain has a noisy digital texture to it. Nevertheless, overall, this is exactly what 'Minority Report' is supposed to look like.

Audio Review

Ranking:

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack has a great deal of power and breadth. Many stinger effects are truly jolting. The stun rifles slam into their targets with a bass impact you can feel in your gut. Regular gun shots have satisfying crack and thump. The surround channels are constantly engaged to create an immersive soundfield.

The John Williams score is also broad and expansive. Fidelity is excellent in all respects, if a little cold (which could be intentional for the tone of the movie). The dynamic range strikes a nice balance between thundering impact and more subtle ambient effects. The track is rarely loud just for the sake of being loud. Bass is crisp and refined, not boomy. This is every bit the slick and polished action spectacle soundtrack you'd expect from a craftsman with the skill and resources at Steven Spielberg's disposal.

Special Features

Ranking:

As mentioned above, all bonus features on this Blu-ray edition are found on Disc 2. Steven Spielberg continues to shun the possibility of recording an audio commentary.

The DVD edition released back in late 2002 was fairly packed with supplements. Some are pretty interesting, while others are promotional fluff from the Electronic Press Kit. The Blu-ray carries over all of the video features from that release. They've been segmented into several major categories.

From Story to Screen

  • The Story/The Debate (SD, 10 min.) – Spielberg and Cruise gush about working with each other. The screenwriters and producers discuss the themes of the story.
  • The Players (SD, 10 min.) – Spielberg and the cast talk about the characters, and how wonderful the experience of making the movie was.

Deconstructing Minority Report

  • The World of Minority Report – An Introduction (SD, 9 min.) – This making-of piece skims through the concept and themes, the futuristic designs, and the production itself in a superficial manner.
  • PreCrime and Precogs (SD, 8 min.) – A look at the production design, photography, visual effects, costumes, and props related to the PreCrime force.
  • The Spyder Sequence (SD, 5 min.) – A breakdown of the scene in question, including visual effects, sound design, and music.
  • Precog Visions (SD, 5 min.) – Conceptualizing and making the psychic visions and the PreCrime computer interface.
  • Vehicles of the Future (SD, 5 min.) – The design of the maglev system, hover ships, and background vehicles.

The Stunts of Minority Report

  • Maglev Escape (SD, 3 min.) – Cruise leaps from car to car on a bluescreen soundstage.
  • Hoverpack Chase (SD, 3 min.) – The actors dangle from cables on the Warner Bros. backlot.
  • Car Factory (SD, 3 min.) – Colin Farrell beats up Tom Cruise on the auto assembly line.

ILM and Minority Report

  • An Introduction (SD, 5 min.) – Cruise explains what it's like to act on a bluescreen stage with no props to interact with. Spielberg says that sometimes he'd rather not know how the VFX people do what they do, which is then contradicted by the VFX people who say that Spielberg takes an active hand in everything they do.
  • Holograms (SD, 3 min.) – Making the holographic home movies.
  • Hall of Containment (SD, 3 min.) – Shooting on a bluescreen stage, animating the rest in later.
  • Maglev (SD, 3 min.) – More of the above.
  • Hovercraft and Hoverpacks (SD, 3 min.) – And more.
  • Cyber Parlor (SD, 2 min.) – Yup, they did this one all in a computer too.

Everything Else

  • Final Report (SD, 4 min.) – Cruise and Spielberg bestow more praise upon each other. Because we just can't get enough of that.
  • Production Concepts – Production art and behind-the-scenes photos.
  • Storyboard Sequences (SD, 9 min.) – Storyboards for the maglev, alley chase, and car factory sequences.
  • Trailers (HD/SD, 5 min.) – Three trailers, all cropped to 16:9.

HD Bonus Content: Any Exclusive Goodies in There?

The Blu-ray also has some brand-new supplements.

  • The Future According to Steven Spielberg (HD, 34 min.) – In this wide-ranging interview recorded in 2002 upon the film's theatrical release (portions of which are used in the older featurettes on the disc), a very energized Spielberg discusses the origins of the project, its futuristic designs, and his stylistic decisions. It's an excellent interview on its own. The Blu-ray authors have attempted to spice it up further by plastering a sidebar menu on the screen with branching icons that will take you to interviews, artwork, and other snippets taken from the other featurettes on the disc. This is frankly kind of annoying. Using these options disrupts the flow of Spielberg's conversation. I find it preferable to watch each feature separately, than to force an interactivity component where it doesn't really fit.
  • Inside the World of PreCrime (HD, 10 min.) – This faux-infomercial (complete with fake Lexus commercial) purports to explain the workings and purpose of the PreCrime force. The use of production art drawings and clips from the movie kind of kills suspension of disbelief, however. It feels cobbled together.
  • Philip K. Dick, Steven Spielberg and Minority Report (HD, 14 min.) – The author's daughter and a biographer reminisce about his life and work. Several people from the film's production describe the original short story and the changes that the movie makes to it.
  • Minority Report: Future Realized (HD, 6 min.) – A science and tech advisor who worked on 'Minority Report' plugs his current attempts to make the interactive computer interfaces seen in the film into a real commercial product. Yes, this is basically an ad, but it's also kind of neat.
  • Minority Report: Props of the Future (HD, 10 min.) – The movie's production designer showcases some of the film's coolest props, which Steven Spielberg has personally kept in storage.
  • Highlights from Minority Report: From the Set (HD, 9 min.) – Behind-the-scenes footage from the shooting of the hoverpack chase and car factory sequences.
  • Minority Report: Commercials of the Future (HD, 4 min.) – A look at the concept and design of the futuristic advertisements, many of which were created with the input of real advertisers (rather than movie people trying to make up fake ads).
  • Previz Sequences (HD, 4 min.) – Side-by-side comparisons of the (very crude) animatics to final footage for the hoverpack chase and maglev escape.

The Cutting Room Floor: What Didn't Make the Blu-ray?

The only things on the DVD that didn't make their way to the Blu-ray are some cast & crew bios, and text production notes. These are not significant losses.

'Minority Report' comes very close to being a great film, but just never quite gets there. It's a flawed but still worthwhile sci-fi thriller. The Blu-ray, freshly remastered with the director's approval, looks and sounds pretty great. It's also loaded with supplements, both old and new. This disc is certainly worthy of a recommendation, despite my quibbles with the movie.