Minority Report (2002)
Front Cover Actor
Clancy Brown John Anderton, additional voices (voice)
Quinton Flynn Danny Witwer, Rufus Riley, additional voices (voice)
Daran Norris Roy Verhaegan, additional voices (voice)
Gabrielle Carteris Agatha, additional voices (voice)
Diane Michelle Iris Hineman, additional voices (voice)
Bonnie Cahoon Nikki Jameson, additional voices (voice)
Karl Hungus Shinwa Okawa, Additional Voices (voice)
Edward Yin Additional Voices (voice) (as Edward Tang)
Jay Gordon Barry Hatch, additional voices (voice)
Gene Bahng Additional Voices (voice)
Tom Cruise
Max von Sydow
Samantha Morton
Movie Details
Genre Action; Animation; Drama; Mystery; Sci-Fi; Thriller
Director Steven Spielberg
Producer Gene Bahng
Language English
Audience Rating T
Country USA
Color Color
Plot
Full of flawed characters and shot in grainy de-saturated colours, Steven Spielberg's Minority Report is futuristic film noir with a far-fetched B-movie plot that's so feverishly presented the audience never gets a chance to ponder its many improbabilities. Based on a short story by Philip K Dick, Minority Report is set in the Orwellian near-future of 2054, where a trio of genetically modified "pre-cogs" warn of murders before they happen. In a sci-fi twist on the classic Hitchcockian wrong man scenario, Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is the zealous precrime cop who is himself revealed as a future-killer. Plot twists and red herrings drive the action forward and complications abound, not least Anderton's crippling emotional state, his drug habit, his avuncular-yet-sinister boss (Max Von Sydow), and the ambitious FBI agent Witwer (Colin Farrell) snapping at his heels.

Though the film toys with the notion of free will in a deterministic universe, this is not so much a movie of grand ideas as forward-looking ones. Its depiction of a near-future filled with personalised advertising and intrusive security devices that relentlessly violate the right of anonymity is disturbingly believable. Ultimately, though, it's a chase movie and the innovative set-piece sequences reveal Spielberg's flair for staging action. As with A.I. before it, there's a nagging feeling that the all-too-neat resolution is a Spielbergian touch too far: the movie could satisfactorily have ended several minutes earlier. Though this is superior SF from one of Hollywood's greatest craftsmen, it would have been more in the spirit of Philip K Dick to leave a few tantalisingly untidy plot threads dangling.

On the DVD: Minority Report on disc brings up Janusz Kaminski's wonderfully subdued cinematography in an ideal anamorphic widescreen print. John Williams's Bernard Herrmann-esque score is the major beneficiary of Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS sound options. There is no commentary, and the movie plus everything on the second disc, which contains five short featurettes and an archive of text and visual material, could probably have been squeezed onto just one disc. The featurettes are: "From Story to Screen", "Deconstructing Minority Report", "The Stunts of Minority Report", "ILM and Minority Report" and "Final Report: Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise". There are subtitles in English and Scandinavian languages. --Mark Walker

Personal Details
Seen It Yes
Index 105
In Collection Yes
Links IMDB
Amazon US
Amazon UK
Product Details
Format DVD
Region Region 1
UPC 667068998924
Release Date 24-08-2004
Nr of Disks/Tapes 2
Extra Features
Color Closed-captioned Widescreen