Contemporary society operates under the precepts that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But what if, in the not-too-distant future world that John Anderton (Cruise) inhabits, the rules were changed? What if we had the ability to predict who would commit murder? Through the wonders of "Precrime" detection, the government has been able to do just that, virtually obliterating crime by intercepting the offender before the crime has even been committed. Sounds a bit Orwellian, perhaps, but, as envisioned by Philip K. Dick in the short story "The Minority Report," this is an all-too-realistically drawn future.And in the hands of director
Steven Spielberg, this adaptation of Dick's critically acclaimed short story retains much of the essence of the original, while creating a highly stylized vision unique to Spielberg. Like
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence before it,
Minority Report represents a bit of a departure for director Steven Spielberg; however, this action-packed film artfully weaves together elements of different genres—mystery, speculative fiction, action—and does so in a setting so close to our own that we could imagine this happening in tomorrow's America.
Anderton is the detective leading the six-year Precrime experiment in the Washington, D.C., area, and a staunch advocate of the program—until his own name suddenly comes up, indicating that he's going to kill a man he's never even met. On the run from his own officers, Anderton must sift through clues to find out who's framed him and why.
The two-disc DVD set for
Minority Report presents the film in widescreen format on the first disc; there is a choice of English, Spanish or French subtitles and three English language soundtracks (5.1 Dolby Digital, 2.0 Dolby Surround and DTS Digital Surround) and one French soundtrack (also in 5.1 Dolby Digital).
The second disc features a variety of bonus features—all of which take a peek behind-the-scenes at the making of
Minority Report.
Advice from Precrime would have helped If Precrime were real, then perhaps the producers of this DVD would have realized the value of more adjustments to the design of these discs before they were released.
First, a film like this would have been a perfect candidate for an audio track commentary; however, there is none. Nor are there any additional scenes or different perspectives to give viewers more insight into the making of the film.
What you do get are a host of short extra features whose sheer number makes the disc's content seem stronger than it is. Divided into five categories—with more hidden away under the "archives"—the longest of the individual segments is less than 10 minutes, while the shortest are just over two minutes. There's no "play all" feature, as seen on discs like the
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring Extended-Edition DVD. And even the bits that are nicely executed could have been improved.
Under the mantle "From Story to Screen," there are two featurettes, each barely 10 minutes long—one covering the story (from the viewpoint of Spielberg, Cruise and others involved in the production) and the other that's titled "The Players," a bit of a misnomer, considering it's really a look at the actors' involvement in the movie (from both the director and the actors' perspective).
"Deconstructing
Minority Report" has five subsections, each with three-to-five-minute snippets discussing different aspects of the world Spielberg created for the film, looking at everything from the nature of Precog visions to the evolution of futuristic vehicles. Not only is the busy menu poorly designed, but this is one of the sections where the lack of a "play all" option is felt the most; individually, the short bits feel almost truncated, with no throughline—even though they do feature many of the same voices from the production, from Spielberg on down.
Also short and disjointed are the three stunt sequences shown in the "Stunts of
Minority Report" section and the six special-effects shorts in the ILM section. These two-to-five-minute bits mix behind-the-scenes footage with the actual film shots and interviews with those who were integral to bringing those shots to fruition. Again, if each of these were presented as part of a larger whole, they might have felt more meaty—but to have to return to the remote every two to three minutes proves annoying at best.
One of the more interesting subsets of extra material lies buried under the archives section, which also houses the disc's most pedestrian content, too—three unlabeled movie trailers and text-based cast and filmmaker biographies and production notes that seem almost too ordinary for inclusion with a film of this caliber. The first item of note here is the concept art, with as many as 30 still images presented for each of the 13 topics covering a different angle of
Minority Report (apartment trappings, hoversuits, precogs, objects and more). The second—and perhaps least heralded—content is the three storyboard sequences, which come alive thanks to the disc's producers setting the pacing of the hand-drawn visuals to coincide with the dialogue, sounds and music of the actual scene. This section would have been even stronger, though, had it included a link to the final sequences in the film as well; this way, viewers could better track the evolution of the scene.
Minority Report is an engrossing and engaging film that plays well on the living room's small screen. The discs' production values aren't lacking per se, but film buffs like me will wish the supplemental content was stronger—especially given the film's high-end pedigree. — Melissa
