Different Paths to the Future

...Perhaps in homage, Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski give Minority Report a hazy washed-out silvery look...

...The two have occasionally collaborated in the past, most famously on the Indiana Jones trilogy...

...her wide eyes and frequent hysterics express Agatha's agonizing sensitivity to both present and future...

...But the computers are programmed to delete any files that disagree with the majority divination, eliminating the evidence of fallibility...

...Perhaps Lucas is sending a message here to Spielberg...

...Both are science fiction epics...

...Things heat up when crackerjack lead detective John Anderton (Tom Cruise), who fanatically supports the "Pre-Crime" initiative, learns the Pre-Cogs have identified him as the next potential killer...

...Instead, he not only approaches the scene of the crime but carries a gun identical to the one the Pre-Cogs indicated...

...Although—presto!—he can see as well as he did before the surgery, he is careful to keep his original peepers in a ziploc bag...

...Forced to flee from men who yesterday were under his command, Anderton looks into the history of Pre-Crime in the hopes of determining how Witwer managed to frame him...

...When everyone suddenly finds utter contentment, the transition is jarring...

...Their romantic scenes are gratifyingly brief, but the painfully stilted tenor of their conversations is hard to forget...

...The most lucrative of them all is Spider-Man, which, at the time of this writing, is already the fifth biggest moneymaker of all time...

...The message of the film is no less muddled...

...The cinematic tricks are a far cry from Spielberg's esthetics in the '70s and '80s...

...he appears to think that he needs four or five to give the audiences their money's worth...

...But it fails even at that...

...Maybe audiences and filmmakers in this country are finally recognizing that, as Spider-Man's Uncle Ben says, "with great power comes great responsibility...

...And though an evil villain is defeated near its close, the protagonist soon realizes his secret identity will endanger all who get close to him...

...He discovers that in some instances the prophecy of one PreCog will deviate from that of the other two, generating a so-called minority report...

...It is not merely the Feds who always know where the people of D.C...

...Spielberg's Minority Report is a very loose adaptation of a short story by Philip K. Dick, whose fiction also inspired the movies Blade Runner and Total Recall...

...in fact, all you need to do is pay attention to the text of the prologue provided at the beginning and not allow the stunning sights to distract you from keeping up with the tale...

...It seems bizarre to trumpet free will—"you always have a choice," Agatha repeatedly intones—in a tale about a society that has perfected the monitoring and manipulation of its citizens...

...Although a fourth installment in the Jones cycle is rumored to be in the cards, Spielberg and Lucas appear to be following widely divergent artistic paths...

...The film's basic plot is certainly engrossing...

...The film's insistence on the evils of Pre-Crime masks more insidious sociopolitical developments that make Spielberg's 2054 an unpleasant time to live...

...Why not authorize the police to appear at the scene of a potential murder, not to make an arrest, but simply to prevent the act from occurring...

...Furthermore, the criminal mastermind ultimately shows his hand with a verbal slip-up I thought went out with the old Perry Mason television show...

...The constant retinal scans are creepy...

...at one point Anderton drops the eyeballs and has to chase them down a tunnel...

...But this summermarks the firsttimepictures they directed are competing at the box office...

...It is supposed to be a victory when the Pre-Cogs are freed from watery imprisonment and all the pre-criminals are released...

...when the murder rate is skyrocketing— except in Washington, D.C., where a trial government scheme has reduced it to zero...

...These mutants lie in a special room, neck deep in a milky substance, electrodes connected to their skulls...

...The disjunctive images we see of the murder scenario provide tantalizing clues that unravel as the yarn progresses...

...And Spielberg manages to fashion some gripping scenes...

...Researchers discovered three genetically altered clairvoyants, called "Pre-Cogs," who are capable of envisioning capital crimes before they happen...

...These "prequels" (their action precedes the original trilogy) are about a small terrorist network seeking to destroy a vast democracy...

...That way, he can flash the old retinas at the electronic mechanism guarding the Pre-Cogs and gain entry into the otherwise secure PreCrime offices...

...A network of computers downloads their prophetic visions and reproduces them as video clips futuristic detectives can scan and decipher...

...Though Anderton recites the Miranda warnings to a perp, we never see the inside of a court...

...Some of the product placement is witty, but I cannot remember another science fiction film so flooded with it...

...He suspects skeptical investigator Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) of foul play...

...Since he knows the date and time of the killing, it would make the most sense for him to hide out until the moment has passed...

...To prove his case, Anderton decides, he must retrieve the deviant prediction directly from its most likely source, the brain of Agatha (Samantha Morton), the most powerful of the three Pre-Cogs...

...Once they are apprehended, their heads are cuffed in a "halo," an electronic device shaped like a pair of headphones that freezes the wearer into a comatose state...

...To preserve his anonymity, our hero visits a disreputable doctor and has his eyeballs replaced with someone else's...

...He was then fully invested in honoring the style of the Hollywood studio system, blending the pace of an old Republic serial with the color and sweep of a David Lean epic...

...Thus the final hour takes us from big moment to big moment, each concluding dismally...

...Still, to me A ttack of the Clones is such a triumph of visual storytelling that I forgive its pedestrian dialogue and stiff acting...

...It, too, was a dystopian nightmare about a futuristic society that has lost its soul...

...Lucas depicted the sterility of his movie's environment by bathing many scenes in eerie white light...

...But the politics of this entry and the previous one, while extending that metaphor, are soberingly contemporary as well...

...Officers then race to apprehend the suspects, sometimes, as in the opening sequence, preventing bloodshed at the last possible second...

...Lucas' Attack of the Clones is the fifth entry in the long-running Star Wars series...

...After seeing the film twice, I can remember a few vivid shots...

...Minority Report assures us that 52 years from now Radio Shack, the Gap, Lexus, and USA Today will still be around, not to mention the New York Mets...

...He plans to kidnap her...

...It may not be much, but after 20 years of action movies featuring little more than gleeful and wanton destruction, the ameliorating suffering of heroes offers a ray of hope...

...I particularly like the one where Anderton, at work deciphering the latest homicide-to-be, recognizes himself as the offender...

...Alas, none of this is sufficient to compensate for the picture's shortcomings...

...What the Pre-Cogs are reported to envision may then not in fact come to pass...

...there have been storm troopers, a black-clad secret service, a fierce dictator, and blitz-like warfare...

...And the director himself, rather than relying on the disorienting swish and swoop of the Steadicam, composes beautiful widescreen shots that orient us within the action and allow us to track the battle scenes...

...As for the acting, the secondary performers are fairly bland, but Cruise does a good job conveying Anderton's desperation...

...He refuses to trust those who are clearly benign and puts complete faith in the figures most likely to betray him...

...Spielberg was never very good at concocting a single climax...

...Emerging in the era of the Hollywood "new wave," Spielberg's early traditionalism cut against the gram...

...Everything looks digitized: ordinary objects like staircases, playgrounds, walls, roofs, and windows seem as artificial as the cars sliding up and down buildings...

...Critics have complained about the difficulty of following Lucas' plots...

...In his recent return to directing—and to the Star Wars series—he has become more of a traditionalist and is making stronger movies...

...Anderton also makes a number of stupid decisions...

...Even before Anderten deduces the innocence of his initial suspect in the conspiracy, the next likely culprit is already at the front of our minds...

...Cruise does quite well here, burying his character's shock and proceeding, after only a beat, to cover up the killer's identity...

...Morton has the most interesting role...

...most of it is a blur...

...Granted, whether Attack of the Clones is a case in point is highly debatable...

...It is fascinating to compare these very different entertainments in the context of their creators' careers...

...It is hard to maintain interest in a detective story when you are consistently one step ahead of the protagonist...

...It is surprising that Spielberg is still committed to playing the Pre-Cog himself: In A.I., the futuristic picture he released in June 2001, the monument that most successfully outlasts the existence of humankind on earth is the World Trade Center...

...In his latest work he harks back, albeit unsuccessfully, to the more radical notions of the late '60s and '70s...

...Minority Report alludes to a number of earlier films, including A Clockwork Orange (which it cites several times...

...One magnificent sequence, set on a planet with apparently perpetual rain, recalls the far less impressive climax of A.I...

...I don't know why Max von Sydow, a brilliant artist, agreed to appear in this movie, but he surpasses his material...

...When Anderton is on the run—and repeats the phrase "everybody runs" so often you want to kick him in the teeth—he realizes he must do something about his eyes...

...But one wonders why the authorities did not revoke Anderton's access privileges the moment he became public enemy number one...

...Digitized newspapers, signs and storefronts call out the names of passersby and recite their recent shopping history while urging them to purchase more products...

...Because the image of him firing a deadly shot appears on his screen just when his office is under scrutiny by higher-ups at the Justice Department, Anderton believes he is the victim of a conspiracy...

...Pre-criminals do not stand trial...

...All of them are vivid, exciting, and as realistic as can be expected from a fantasy...

...Imagine that in the world of tomorrow, your boss always knows what you are doing and a holographic emissary from Amazon.com is forever badgering you with customized commercials...

...With the exception of Christopher Lee's wonderfully villainous Count Dooku, the performances are dreadful...

...for six years, you would think some compromise should have been in order...

...On Screen Different Paths to the Future By Raphael Shargel If financial returns and commercial influence are the yardsticks of achievement, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are our most important filmmakers: The 10 most profitable movies of all time were directed either by them or one of their imitators...

...There is soon to be a vote on whether to adopt the program nationally...

...A disillusioned Anderton is convinced there is a minority report that will not only foretell his innocence but undermine the entire Pre-Crime operation...

...Lucas' technicians are careful, when digitizing huge crowds, to make each figure move slightly differently from his neighbor, removing the video-game quality that poisons most sci-fi movies...

...For example, no one explains why the Pre-Cogs can specify the precise time of upcoming murders and name the expected killer and victim, yet are unable to provide the address of the crime scene...

...Adding insult to absurdity, she is always airbrushed and well groomed, even after standing in the desert for hours...

...Since the inception of the Sfar Wars series in 1977, Lucas has forged a clear analogy between his forces of evil and the Nazis...

...After all, the target of Anderton's prospective shooting is a total stranger to him...

...One more part like this and she will qualify as the Kate Bush of film actresses...

...Amazingly, it preserves much of the adolescent angst that made the comic book version unique in its day...

...In 2054, scanners set up everywhere project laser beams into our retinas, thereby identifying us...

...This allows for a number of grotesque shots that are probably a source of pride for Spielberg...

...After all the horrific events, the "happy" ending is so perfunctory, so long in coming, that it leaves a bad taste in the mouth...

...Spielberg's apparent despair about the fate of freedom and justice is coupled with a depressing faith in commercialism...

...Despite this and other good moments, however, Minority Report disappoints...

...When the two main characters, Senator Padmé Amidala (Natalie Portman) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), fall in love, they make eyes at each other listlessly, as if in a mating ritual of the undead...

...The film also looks terrific because it uses a full palate of color as it explores the landscapes and cultures of numerous imaginary worlds...

...Poor Portman, who is supposed to emerge here as an action heroine, has been squeezed into outfits that look like handme-downs from Britney Spears...

...One of its strongest influences is THX 1138 the first full-length work by George Lucas...

...Lucas' career has gone in the opposite direction...

...AFTER COMPLAINING in my last column about the exultation of violence that marked many films in 2001, I find myself strangely gratified by the dark ambiguity that prevails in this summer's blockbusters...

...Given that the new system had completely eradicated murder in D.C...

...This forces him to reject the love of his dream girl and hide his reasons for doing so...

...We suddenly understand that all the efforts of the good guys—to uncover the conspiracy, protect its targets, and defeat the threatening forces—have been anticipated by the enemy, who has transformed the good intentions of his adversaries into policies that only make him more powerful...

...Lucas sets many narratives in simultaneous motion, moving from one to the other with beautiful facility until they all come together in the end...

...Spielberg and screenwriters Scott Frank and Jon Cohen stuff their tale with digressions and inconsistencies that ultimately make the viewer's experience more unsettling than pleasurable...

...His two films of the '70's, American Graffiti and Star Wars, though nostalgic, had a quirky irreverence...

...THE MOVIE is extremely long and filled with red herrings, yet features only a few characters, which always stifles joy in a whodunit...

...They are then locked in tiny vaults within an enormous room resembling an interstellar morgue...

...The most chilling moment in Attack of the Clones comes toward the end, where the leader of the terrorists gleefully says everything has gone precisely according to plan...

...It struck me less as a way of communicating mood than a method of disguising the computer-generated effects...

...Having played a mute in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown, she is carving out a niche for herself as an affecting interpreter of disturbed misfits...

...Minorin· Report takes place in 2054...