Minority Report

Did You Know?

• The score was composed and conducted by John Williams, who was inspired by Bernard Herrmann's film music and made a score suitable for film noir, including the use of a female singer and emotional themes.
• Several classical pieces, including Franz Schubert's Symphony No. 8, Haydn's String Quartet (Op. 64, No. 1), and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, were implemented in the score.
• The film spawned a tie-in video game in 2002 and a single-season television series in 2015.

Plot

In 2054, a pilot program called Precrime is active in Washington, D.C. Three psychics, called precogs, have visions of upcoming murders. Police use these visions to stop the killings before they happen, then put the arrested suspects into comas and imprison them indefinitely. The program’s chief, John Anderton, joined after his young son was taken from a public pool and likely killed. Anderton is hooked on the drug neuroin, and his wife Lara has left him. A Justice Department agent, Danny Witwer, reviews Precrime for flaws. Anderton sees precog Agatha relive a woman drowning. The prison warden tells him that woman, Anne Lively, vanished after her murder was prevented, and that Agatha’s vision was never filed. Soon, the precogs foresee Anderton killing a stranger named Leo Crow. Anderton runs, and Witwer leads a manhunt. Anderton seeks out Dr. Iris Hineman, the geneticist behind Precrime. She says the precogs got their powers in the womb from mothers addicted to neuroin. She adds that sometimes one precog sees a different future than the others—a “minority report”—which is deleted to keep the precogs seeming perfect. To find his own minority report, Anderton must locate Agatha.

Production

The journey of Philip K. Dick's 1956 novella "The Minority Report" to the screen began in 1992, when producer and writer Gary Goldman secured an option on the story. He teamed up with Ron Shusett and Robert Goethals to draft a script, initially conceived as a sequel to the 1990 adaptation of Dick's work, "Total Recall," which had starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. The project stalled when Carolco Pictures, the production company behind it, went bankrupt in 1995, unable to secure funding or Schwarzenegger's commitment. Miramax Films later bought the remake rights in 1997, and Shusett and Goldman stripped out the "Total Recall" connections to shape a standalone film. That same year, novelist Jon Cohen was brought on to write a new adaptation, with Dutch director Jan de Bont attached. Meanwhile, Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg, who had become friends on the set of Cruise's 1983 film "Risky Business," had spent a decade seeking a project together. Spielberg had once been set to direct Cruise in "Rain Man" but left for "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade." Cruise read Cohen's script and passed it to Spielberg, who thought it needed revision. Once Cohen delivered a version Spielberg approved, the director told Cruise he would take the job. In that script, Witwer fabricates a disk showing Anderton killing him; Anderton's faith in the precogs' accuracy makes him believe the footage, so the precogs then foresee him killing Witwer. Spielberg liked the story because it combined a mystery with a future setting, letting him blend genres.

Style

Minority Report portrays elements of both a dystopian and utopian future, rendering a more detailed view of its future world than the book and containing new technologies not in Dick's story. Stylistically, it resembles Spielberg's previous film A.I. but also incorporates elements of film noir. Spielberg said he wanted to give the movie a noir feel and watched films such as Asphalt Jungle, Key Largo, and The Maltese Falcon. The picture was deliberately overlit, and the negative was bleach-bypassed during post-production, desaturating the colors by about 40% to achieve a washed-out appearance that nearly resembles a black-and-white movie, with high-contrast blacks and shadows like a film noir. The only scene shot in normal color is Anderton's dream about his son's kidnapping at the pool. Spielberg preferred film to digital video and created the look photochemically. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński shot with high-speed film in Super 35 format to increase grain, having been told by Spielberg to create the ugliest, dirtiest movie he'd ever shot. The camera work is very mobile, alternating between handheld and Steadicam shots, exaggerated by wide-angle lenses and low camera angles. Kamiński never used a lens longer than 27mm, alternating between 17, 21, and 27mm lenses, and staged many scenes in wide shots with much happening within the frame. The duo also used several long takes to focus on actors' emotions rather than numerous cuts.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, Minority Report holds an 89% approval rating based on 260 reviews, with an average rating of 8.20/10. The site's critical consensus calls it a thought-provoking and visceral sci-fi thriller that successfully combines high-concept ideas and high-octane action. It was listed among the best reviewed films of 2002. On Metacritic, the film earned an 80 out of 100 based on 37 reviews, indicating generally favorable reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave it an average grade of B+. Most critics praised the film's handling of its central theme of free will versus determinism, ranking it as the film's main strength, though some felt Spielberg did not adequately tackle the issues raised. The film has inspired discussion and analysis compared to that of Blade Runner. Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek fashioned a criticism of the Cheney Doctrine by comparing its preemptive strike methodology to the film's PreCrime system. Richard Corliss of Time called it Spielberg's sharpest, brawniest, most bustling entertainment since Raiders of the Lost Ark. Mike Clark of USA Today praised its breathless pace and no-flab script, while Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly praised the visuals.