The film takes place in Washington D.C., in the year 2054 A.D., far off into the future where the unimaginable is possible. The story revolves around a department called Precrime. The concept of this department is to stop crime before it happens with the aid of 3 genetically altered humans called 'Pre-Cogs' who are able to 'see' and divulge information on a crime before it is committed with pinpoint accuracy. It is then up to the officers in the department to study the visions of the Pre-Cogs and stop the murder from happening. The department of
Precrime is lead by Chief John Anderton (played by Tom Cruise) who, after losing his son six years ago, have put his life and trust into this system, solely to prevent others from suffering the loss he felt when he lost his son. The system is put in place, and it was perfect. Murders were eliminated and statistics show a 90% drop in homicide cases in the past 6 years. However it in itself, raised a contradiction.
Can anyone be accused of murder before the act is even committed?
This caused an agent from the United States Department of Justice, Danny Witwer, to evaluate the system and whether or not the country should expand Pre-Crime internationally.
Things then started to heat up when the chief of Pre-Crime himself is seen as the perpetrator of a murder in the Pre-Cog's vision. John was supposed to murder a man named Leo Crow in less than 36 hours but was convinced he is set up because he doesn't even know the victim. After escaping from the very colleagues he used to work with, he made his way to the residence of Dr. Iris Hineman, whose research laid the groundwork for the Precrime program. It was explained that the three Pre-Cogs do not always agree on the visions of the future, hence the one that deviates the most from the others is ignored, this report is called the minority report, causing John to search for his minority report, if it exists.
However, as the entire city is filled with identity scanners which makes John easier to locate, he is forced to undergo surgery by a shady doctor to replace his eyes with new ones. After which John managed to narrowly avoid capture as the surgery was successful. He holds on to his own pair of eyes and managed to get in the Precrime office and removes Agatha from the chamber and takes her to a friend of his, who manages to extract the images of the murder John is about to commit. John then tracks down Crow to his apartment to find out who set him up or why he would kill a man he didn't even know. Agatha insists that he had a choice and he could leave and forget about the whole thing but John went ahead anyway. He then found pictures of several children on Crow's bed, among them were pictures of Crow and his son whom he lost 6 years ago, Sean.
Just then, Crow walks in the room and John assaults him, trying to get a confession from him. Crow then reveals that the photographs were fakes and that if John killed him as seen in the vision, Crow's family would have a cash payoff but he didn't know who it was that set it up. After a struggle, Crow manages to pull the trigger of the gun that was still in John's hand, effectively causing the Pre-Cog's vision to become a reality. The audience is often led to think that John was set up by Witwer, who was trying to find flaws in the system but this changed when the murder of a woman named Ann Lively resurfaced and Witwer was killed by Burgess for investigating it.
Later on, John was seen in his ex-wife, Lara's house with Agatha, discussing the murder of Ann Lively and was caught by Precrime officers who took him by surprise. Burgess then meets with Lara to comfort her and accidentally revealed a fact about Lively's murder that he shouldn't have known, causing Lara to think that he committed the murder himself. Lara then proceeds to free John from the holding area and he interrupted the event in Burgess' honor by playing a video of the Pre-Cog's vision of the murder of Ann Lively, causing Burgess to panic and sneak out of the room. The Pre-Cog then had a vision of the murder of John Anderton, which was perpetrated by none other than Lamar Burgess.
John then told Burgess he had 2 options. To kill John and prove that the system works at the cost of a life sentence, or don't kill him and prove that the system is indeed flawed. Burgess then decides to take his own life instead. In the ending scene, the Precrime office is seen to be abandoned, indicating that people had lost hope in the system. The three Pre-Cogs are then seen living normal lives in a remote location in peace.
Steven Spielberg had assembled a group of sixteen future experts three years before this movie was made. In this movie, the director's vision of the future can be seen. Simple technological advancements to complex ones can be seen, vertical transportation that doubles as a personal transport can be seen several times in the movie, to display the director's very own vision of how the future should be.
However i find this movie to be rather unimpressive and i would say that this is definitely much less than what Steven Spielberg can do. The progression of the story is dreadfully slow and while the director aims to build up climax by slowly revealing important plots in the movie, i feel that it is not very well done as it is very difficult to understand anything that is going on up till near the end of the movie. Perhaps in his vision of how the future could or should be, the director strayed off the course.
Do not be mistaken, this movie has its impressive points. The very idea of stopping crime before it happens is extremely well thought up, although it raises contradictions of its own. The future, as seen in the movie, is quite commonly seen in most movies, consisting of a world where most things are controllable by machines, but in Minority report, it is rather impressively done. Cars are not flying as most futuristic movies tend to portray, however they travel on a set track and doubles as vertical transportation. 3D videos are also seen as possible in this director's future. Instead of using only one video camera to play a video, several video cams are seen projecting the image in a 3D form using holographic technology. The part i find the most impressive is the ability to transfer files from one screen onto another using a portable film which only looks like a thin sheet of glass.
The technology itself fits seamlessly into the story, reinforcing the director's idea of a future where crime should not exist. It creates an environment where the officers in the Precrime department has sufficient technological advancements to identify the perpetrator, yet it does not make it too easy for them and cause the film to become predictable and boring. Overall, the future portrayed in the movie is extremely well thought of, although i can't quite say the same for the movie itself.
I do feel that this movie has an impact on design, as it portrays the unlimited possibilities we have at hand, where it can be said that it is only our imagination itself that is limited. The movie invites us to open up our mind to accept what people would say is impossible to do.
People ask why. I ask, why NOT?
It invites us into the world created by the director and share his visions for the future. We may or may not agree with his point of view but we are free to choose how we want to create the future, we just need to stop thinking and create a better future.
Where in architecture, we work to create a better future, one space at a time
Reference
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0181689/
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