Minority Report - 2 Disc Special Edition [DVD]

An 'oldie' but a goody - Tom Cruise on the run for a murder he hasn't (yet) committed. Spielberg and sci-fi always seems to gel well. It's interesting to watch now and recognise technological aspects of the film that actually became reality (not pre-crime, thank goodness!) The weak spot is Colin Farrell, here at the start of his (US) career and hasn't quite mastered a rudimentary American accent, or grasped the fact that enthusiasm often looks like over acting...

Minority Report is one of the best ‘real’ science fiction movies of all time; by ‘real sci-fi’ I mean a film that looks intelligently at the world of tomorrow and asks thought-provoking questions, rather than simply blowing up spaceships. This is hardly surprising since it’s based on a short story by the philosophical sci-fi novelist Philip K. Dick, whose works were the inspiration for the equally brilliant Blade Runner and the distinctly daft Total Recall, amongst others. The set-up here is that three ‘Pre-Cogs’ are able to see murders before they take place, allowing Pre-Crime officers to arrest killers before they can commit the crime. Tom Cruise is the poster boy Pre-Crime cop who has secretly become a drug addict following the abduction of his son, Max von Sydow is the boss of Pre-Crime who will do anything to expand the experiment across the whole of the US, and Colin Farrell is the hotshot Attorney General agent trying to find flaws in the Pre-Crime system. When the Pre-Cogs predict that Cruise himself is going to commit a murder he is forced to go on the run. As he tries to find proof that he is not a future murderer he encounters various weird and wonderful characters and ultimately discovers that Pre-Crime is not the infallible system he thought it was.Minority Report is brilliant in every regard from script to acting and from design to visual effects, all expertly marshalled by Steven Spielberg who skilfully combines the intricate, intelligent plot with dramatic action sequences. Cruise has never been better and the supporting cast is also superb, with Samantha Morton especially excellent as the Pre-Cog Agatha. There are also some really creepy sequences, such as the spyders and the eye surgeon. My only gripe is the way Cruise has to explain what has been going on rather than allowing the audience to work things out for themselves.The film looks and sounds fantastic on Blu Ray, but I have some minor gripes about the bonus features. The good news is that all the material from the previous DVD release has been carried over, though bizarrely while you can pause these featurettes you cannot scan forwards or backwards, so if you miss something that someone has said you’ll have to start from the beginning! There are some very good new retrospective documentaries looking at the life of Philip K. Dick, the props, and the real world application of the movement-controlled computer interface. There is also some behind the scenes and previz footage from various key action sequences. One featurette I could have done without though is the Pre-Crime ‘mockumentary’.Aside from not being to the control the old DVD extras this is an excellent collection of bonus material, but when you first click on ‘Extras’ the first option you see is an ‘interactive’ interview with Steven Spielberg. The interview runs for 34 minutes but along the way you have the option to watch various related interviews and photo montages and it took me a good couple of hours to get through everything. Then, to my dismay, I discovered that *everything* here is included in the other bonus material on the disc, apart from a few seconds of the Spielberg interview. In fact the vast majority of the disc’s bonus material can actually be watched via the rather cumbersome interactive pop-ups. I would suggest that you watch the Spielberg interview but don’t brother with the pop-ups, and then watch all the bonus material separately.Minority Report is a brilliant film and aside from some niggles about the bonus features this is an excellent Blu Ray and absolute must-buy for any sci-fi movie fan.

I never saw this film on first release and got to know it only now as a BD release. The first thing to say is that the sound quality is spectacular. Whether listening to the futuristic weapons and flying devices, the wild action sequences, or just about anything you remember from the film, there is a good chance that you will be very impressed by the power and clarity of this HD soundtrack. The localisation of surround effects and the power chanelled to your subwoofer for Low Frequency Effects are also truly stunning.What you will think of the video quality depends on your attitude to grain. Like "Saving Private Ryan" this is a film where Spielberg cultivated a grainy, almost grimy look at times, and HD makes grain more apparent! Having said that, I thought the film looked fantastic and accepted the grain, the somewhat reduced colours and occasionally unsettling contrasts as part of Spielberg's dystopic vision. None of this prevents the film from demonstrating exceptional sharpness in close-ups and giving a real sense of depth and plasticity to the image in mid-range shots and close-ups. There is no lack of detail, and that is the good side of grain. Remove the grain with DNR and you lose detail.The film itself is packed with great perfomers, particularly Max von Sydow and Colin Farrell. It is a long-ish film but does not outstay its welcome, spinning a fascinating story with a perfect tempo and a generous smattering of twists and turns. The ethical issues it touches on are most compelling, even if they are in the end somewhat ducked by the nature of the film's resolution. I hope it's not a spoiler - (stop reading now if you don't know the plot and don't want to know anything about it) - to say that if the system had indeed been perfect then the moral questions would have been much more interesting.A great film to watch and rewatch, sounding great in HD and looking great too. If you hate grain, switch your player's processing on and reduce it according to taste. For purists there is nothing to worry about.Highly recommended.

Great film

I'm not a Tom Cruise fan, I need to say that from the start.I look at his films with a degree of trepidation. This one, however, isn't bad at all.Cruise plays John Anderton, a drug using pre-crimes cop who is forced to go on the run after the pre-cogs show that he will commit the premeditated murder of a man he doesn't know. The film follows Andertons attempts to discover who the man is and why he's going to kill him. Once he has discovered who and why, he has to decide what to do next.Yes, it raises the obvious question over free will, there is always a point in crime when you make the decision to continue or to stop. Which reminds me of the UK Government's intention to look for the "evil" gene so it that criminals can be institutionalised before they commit crimes. Such preemption can only cause problems, no matter the reasoning behind it, it assumes that all people will act to type, that children born into a family of criminals will become criminals, that children of murderers will murder, and so on. Free will isn't just the right of the politicians or the rich, it is a basic right of all. This film touches on that.Overall, it was an interesting film about an interesting idea.