Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg’s futuristic freakout remains eye-popping in every sense.
Too bad it never ends.
Every week,Entertainment Weeklyis looking back at the biggest movies of the summer of 2002.
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Join us for a rewatch of the first true summer of Hollywood’s strange new millennium.
Next week:Mr. Deedsgoes to Sandlertown.
LEAH:DidSamantha Mortonhave a premonition we were going to write this, Darren?
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And John carries out his job with full conviction, because the precogs are never wrong.Or are they?
There’s someJetsonskitsch in there, a heavy dose ofBlade Runner, a little Fritz Lang.
But how does it all hold up for you?
It’s funny howMinority Reportimmediately doubled down on a lot of those grime-glam instincts.
Here’s a big-budget science-fiction adventure that purposefully washes every visual into ghoulish gray.
The camera gets right up close to Tom Cruise, whose never-more-perfect skin looks pallid.
It also kind of became the de-facto science fiction look.
The real fun starts when John has to go on the run, framed (maybe?)
for a murder he has no plans to commit.
Camerawork fetishists love the robo-spider invasion, with its god’s-eye view of a whole apartment building.
Personally, I love the precog heist, when John kidnaps (frees?)
Agatha and she uses her prophecy powers to hide in plain sight.
Of course, the movie always had a problem: It’s too damn long.
Do you think the film’s second half suffers a bit in comparison to the first?
And I’m curious: Do you think we’ve movedpastits visual influence for onscreen science fiction?
Directors do seem to have rediscovered colors.
in a greenhouse caftan while poor, poisoned Tom quivers into his tea.
And I love the warmer, more can I use the wordartisanal?
visions of late 21st-century living thatHerandAfter Yanggave us, too.
Give me a pair of light-up robo-gloves and let me crack the case!
So I wish I could say I enjoyed the back third of the movie more.
What’s important, of course, is that he didn’t pull the trigger.
And wear cozy cable-knit sweaters, which seems nice.
The pre-cogs were made out of people.
Darren, would you do it any differently?
And all praise to Morton for bringing shocking depths of humanity to a role that’s half-Vulcan and half-primal.
She has to unload computer-sounding expositionandembody a battle-hardened state of constant feeling.
Don’t go home."
The actual future turns every sci-fi movie into a checklist: What did it get wrong?
As awesome as the movie still looks, it’s recognizably a clash of analog aesthetics with digital possibilities.
Like: balls of destiny!
(Could’ve used Agatha on that one, eh?)
That’s just Spielberg being a vital storyteller who really had his finger on the pulse.
What a turn he took afterSaving Private Ryan.
Then cameA.I.andMinority Report, and thenMunichandWar of the Worldsin the same dang year.
That’s a lot of untrustworthy authorities, shifting identities, and so many cute actors punished in monochrome.
That is not a common opinion today.
But we should always pay more attention to the minority reports.
Read past 2002 rewatches:
