Minority Report

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Starring Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough and Patrick Kilpatrick

Rated PG-13 for violence, brief language, some sexuality and drug content.

All right, just to get everything out in the open, A.I. was just about the most torturous 2 hours of my life that haven't involved the Red Sox or novocain. Awful. Terrible. Root canals are bad but that thing drills a whole in your skull and soul. Ok. Now that that's out of the way, Spielberg's latest tribute to his own moral insight and grand importance, Minority Report, isn't really that bad. It fails mightily on a few levels- it's preaching is preachy and the story is just really full of holes- but the film does succeed in keeping you awake and at least moderately entertained for the most part.

I got really worried when I saw those naked hairless alien-looking guys in the trailer for this film. They seemed to have A.I. Alien/Robot written all over them. Well it turns out their both organic and human, although I'm not sure their place in the plot makes a terrible amount of sense anyway. They're known in the film as pre-cogs and from what I can gather they essentially amount to futuristic crack babies with crystal balls hardwired into them. But they can only see murders in the future. Not rapes or robberies or football scores. Just murders. Whatever keeps the story going, I guess.

"Show me the ......evidence which says I'm not going to kill that guy. Damn, that just isn't catchy at all."

So the futuristic police, with the help of supernatural crack babies, knows about every murder that will be committed and therefore is able to wipe out the crime entirely. So that's the premise. Now, knowing it's a recent Spielberg film, we can just hunt down a few clichés and stereotypes and we'll have the thing nailed. So, first and foremost we'll need a big-name lead character with a tragic past who faces a moral dilemma. Tom Hanks was apparently busy and Haley's in counseling or something so the nod goes

I guess now that Tom is older, the leading ladies have to get less attractive to keep Cruise looking sexy.

to Tom Cruise. He does a reasonable job as strong male figure who has dealt with tragedy and now faces a great dilemma. (We hate to give away plot here, but as you know, everybody runs, even Jerry Maguire.) Secondly, we'll need to show off our budget somehow. It's gonna be hard to work dinosaurs into this one so we'll just come with very impressive future computers and show them whenever possible for as long as possible. Hell, you know it's gonna be long anyway, so we can devote entire scenes to the stuff. And thirdly, if it's going to be a proper Spielberg film it's going to have to have some pseudo-philosophical argument implied by the whole thing. So, this one's about telling the future? No problem, free will has to do with philosophy right? Philosophy, astrology, whatever.

So that's the stuff you know you'll get. On top of that you'll find some of the best camera movement you'll see in a blockbuster of this magnitude, a consistent, cool tone produced through lighting and stock manipulation, and action scenes that work in a Tom Cruise as Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of way. You'll also find absurdly shameless product placement and a plot that just plain drops things. They make a big deal at one point about how Cruise will go blind if he opens his eyes before 12 hours. He does after 6. Nothing happens. You'll also get preached at whenever people aren't running or jumping. So if you go see the film and want to enjoy it, I recommend not trying to pick up the deeper meanings or simply ignoring them as soon as they club you over the head. The film really isn't bad, but it works as an action film and nothing else. Spielberg's degree is in filmmaking, not normative ethics, someone should really point that out to him.

RATING: 50%