Extras:
Minority Report: From Story to Screen, Deconstructing Minority Report,
The Stunts of Minority Report, ILM and Minority Report,
Final Report: Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, Archives (trailers, production
notes, filmographies, storyboards)
Director:
Steven Spielberg
(1941, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, Always, Amistad, Catch Me If You Can, Close Encounter of the Third Kind, The Color Purple, Duel, Empire of the Sun, E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial, Hook, The Indiana Jones Trilogy,
Jaws, Jurassic Park 1 & 2, Minority Report, Poltergeist (uncredited), Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List)
Producer:
Jan de Bont, Bonnie Curtis, Gerald R Molen and Walter F Parkes
Screenplay:
Scott Frank and Jon Cohen (based on a short story by Philip K Dick)
Music :
John Williams
Cast :
Det. John Anderton: Tom Cruise
Det. Danny Witwer: Colin Farrell
Agatha: Samantha Morton
Director Lamar Burgess: Max von Sydow
Dr Iris Hineman: Lois Smith
Dr Solomon: Peter Stormare
Gideon: Tim Blake Nelson
Leo Crow: Mike Binder
Jad: Steve Harris
Lara Anderton: Kathryn Morris
Evanna: Jessica Capshaw
Minority Report has a simple concept,
even if it may look a lot more complex in the first instance.
It's the year 2054 and Detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise) works for the Pre-Crime divison,
a police department which, for the past six years, has pre-determined every
single murder in their district and enabled the law to stop each such crime
before it's committed. They managed it with the help of three "pre-cogs" -
one woman and two men, now in their 20s, but when the government were putting
this project together they were found, as children, to have the power to see
the future, but they also end up seeing and feeling the pain of those who
commit the murder. Big Brother is far more a way of life than it was in the
film, 1984.
It's a perfect system, until the point where it predicts that Anderton's going
to shoot a man dead called Leo Crow. Even the video footage of the event shows
him pointing the gun, saying "Goodbye, Crow" and pulling the trigger.
Just one thing - who the hell is Leo Crow? Anderton has no idea, which is what
starts the chase with him on the run escaping from his colleagues, while
trying to put two and two together and prevent the murder of Leo Crow, which
sounds easy - don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time, or isn't it that
simple?
Of course, to go into the plot further would ruin the surprises that follow,
but I will say that I thought the ending was rather a cop-out, and the way
things were heading about 20 minutes before would've been a far more
satisfactory one. However, the acting is first rate from Tom Cruise, Colin
Farrell - a man sent to investigate the Pre-Crime Divison, given that a
vote is to take place in a week's time as to whether the public agree with
his operation and Britain's Samantha Morton, as Agatha, one of the
pre-cogs, who really deserves to take off as a much bigger star following this
movie.
"Get me the director. I want to talk about the coffee!"
Widescreen is definitely the way to go here. It's a sci-fi vision of the future
which couldn't be realised in anything other than its original ratio, that
being 2.35:1, with a pin-sharp anamorphic widescreen image. At times, the
picture will look a little washed-out or soft, but that's an intentional
effect of the film.
The sound is in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS 5.1, the latter of which is
the better and I have no complaints on that scale. Split-surround effects
are fantastic in the action sequences and even the quieter moments are excelled
with the John Williams score in the background.
The original flying squad.
There's no audio commentary, but the extras are largely made up of featurettes
which address all such issues and use film clips in non-anamorphic 2.35:1.
The menus and sub-menus that split them up are brilliantly put together,
giving a feel of the future whilst blending in clips from the film.
The extras disc is divided into six sections:
Minority Report: From Story to Screen (18 mins):
This starts with The Story/Debate (9 mins), in which Cruise and Spielberg
chat about how this is the first time they've worked together, despite a few
false starts along the way, and then goes on to discuss Philip K Dick's vision
of the future and how they would bring this to the movie screen.
The Players (9 mins) concentrates on the main actors, and mixes in
film clips with interview soundbites from cast and crew.
Deconstructing Minority Report (29 mins):
Split into five different sections, this begins with an Introduction
which sets the scene for what Spielberg wanted to accomplish, and goes on to
look at Precrime and Precogs, The Spyder Sequence, Precog Visions
and Vehicles of the Future, taking a look at each of those sections and
how they were put together.
The Stunts of Minority Report (9 mins):
A lot of blue-screen work used here, there's three minutes explanation apiece
on The Mag-lev Escape (the 'cars' that people use to get about in),
The Hoverpack Chase and The Car Factory.
ILM and Minority Report (19 mins):
The section where Industrial Light & Magic are shown how they get their chance
to shine, starting with a general introduction and going on to talk more about
the holograms cleverly created and utilised throughout the film, the Hall of
Containment where baddies are held, the Mag-Lev, Hoverpacks and the Cyberparlor,
a bizarre Virtual Reality room.
Final Report: Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg (4 mins):
A few more minutes of back-slapping in case you haven't seen enough.
Archives:
Less video footage here, this is more a section of scores of images and pages
of information looking at the Production Concepts and Storyboard
Sequences for the film, filmographies for Cast and Filmmakers,
23 pages of Production Notes to wade through and
3 Trailers in non-anamorphic 16:9 widescreen (80, 100 and 120 seconds,
respectively), plus an anamorphic 16:9 trailer for the Activision game
(90 seconds), in which the characters look just dissimilar enough from the
people who play them so they don't have to be paid royalties on their likeness.
The film contains only 24 chapters which isn't enough as it could do with,
subtitles in English, Danish, Finnish, Icelandic, Swedish and Norwegian and
I've already commented how good the animated and scored menus are.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
