A “dream team” pairing of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg should give this movie all it needs to be number one it’s first week out at the box office. Too bad it needs a lot more to be one of the summer’s most memorable.
The movie is set in the year 2054. The place is Washington, D.C.. Cruise is playing a guy by the name of John Anderton. He’s the chief of the pre-crime unit. Aided by three mutants with powerful psychic abilities, Anderton’s crew arrests people before they commit murders. That’s right – before. These three pale looking mind readers lie in a pool on their backs, and hooked up to lots of computer technology, they transmit the images of the crime before it happens. They’re called “pre-cogs”. It’s up to Anderton and his guys to interpret the images fast enough in order to get to the scene and grab the guy before he does the deed.
Yes, a little hard to believe. By the way, they’re only doing this in D.C., but the plan is to take the technology nationwide. Too bad we didn’t have this last year in D.C. – did you hear that Gary Condit? Also, it only works for murders, and crimes of passion only pop up a short time before they are going to happen. So I suppose if you’re going to stab somebody to within an inch of their lives, the mutants don’t pick it up. That’s only one of a handful of logic holes in this movie.
Colin Farrell plays a Justice Department guy sent in to study the system for flaws. Anderton immediately takes a disliking to him. Before long, Farrell finds out that Anderton has his own big problems. The guy is a drug addict who fell off the deep end after his six year-old son disappeared a few years back. But Anderton soon has even bigger troubles when the mutants in the pool spit up an image of Anderton himself committing a murder. Oh, I should mention that the “system” shoots out pool balls with the names of the victims and the killers engraved on them. Silly, oh yeah, very silly.
But back to Anderton – he is soon on the run with his entire pre-crime department and Farrell after him. Has he been set-up? Or is he actually going to commit murder? Time to point out another flaw- the “pre-cogs” see Anderton’s murder over a day ahead of time, but you’ll see later that it doesn’t appear to be premeditated, so I don’t get it. I thought they couldn’t see murders of passion until just before they happen. But Anderton needs time to run, so that’s why they can see it so early on. Another “problem” is that I figured out who is behind what’s happening to Anderton almost immediately. Not the detail, but the person up to no good .
What’s also strange is that after Anderton is on the run, his retinal scan is still cleared for entry. That is, his eyeball reading is still acceptable at the headquarters of the pre-crime unit. Makes no sense.
But having said all this, the images of life in the year 2054 are still fun to watch. One thing that is clear is that the gap between the rich and the poor is really going to get wider. Anderton and his class have the cars that are programmed to deliver you to your destination and climb walls to do it. Plus they have cool computer technology that involves plenty of virtual imaging. The newspapers change as news is updated, and a cereal box sings a jingle. Also, advertisements talk to you by name as they can scan your eyes for that information.
There are some pretty gross scenes which are enjoyable too. They involve Anderton chasing his own eyeballs and weird little electronic spiders crawling around and scanning retinas for their target suspects.
Overall, though, “Minority Report” fades into it’s own lack of creditability. You root for Anderton, but you roll your eyes too. I can recommend it, but barely. I give it a “6.0”, but add a point if you are really into the mutant psychics.
Friday, June 14th, 2002
Here is this summer’s war movie, and thanks to the success of “Saving Private Ryan”, the movie studios are still trying to recapture that magic. Well, the magic is dead here.
“Windtalkers” refers to Navajo soldiers during World War II who manned the radios and sent the important information in their language so that the Japanese could not steal it. Adam Beach plays one of these guys named Ben Yahzee. Nicolas Cage plays Joe Enders, a Marine assigned to protect Yahzee, but also to kill him if it looks like the enemy is about to capture him. So that’s your moral dilemma. You can probably connect all the dots in this movie just knowing that.
Enders comes into the assignment off a particularly rough time. He is the only guy to survive from his troop and is injured badly. So bad, in fact, he can’t hear much out of his left ear. Which is strange because after he decides he has to get back to the war to salvage what’s left of his conscience, he suddenly seems to be able hear pretty well. That’s right – he gets help to fake his way through a hearing exam, but later I swore I noticed him being able to hear others without reading their lips. This is one of my rules – when a movie starts annoying you early on, you begin to notice plenty of flaws. Let alone that’s Cage’s brooding, nasty demeanor wears thin.
This movie is full of flaws and bad clichés. Here’s more – isn’t it a war movie rule that the guy who softly and solemnly speaks of his dear wife and then gives up his wedding ring to another guy to save for that wife has to die? And, of course, the guy with the ring has to survive? And what about this key scene – Yahzee (I keep thinking of “Yahtzee” here and want to roll the dice) infiltrates a Japanese encampment in order to steal their radio and send an important message but doesn’t even use the “windtalker” code when he does just that. How does that make sense?
In fact, the Navajo code thing takes a big back seat to the bad scriptwriting, and , of course, to the action scenes. You may not know Director John Woo, but he loves to blow things up and after a while it’s overload. As usual with these things, you can’t tell who is who, but you know the guy with the wedding band is going to make it. But here’s another clichéd thing – the action always stops long enough so a couple of the guys can have a heart felt “moment”. Yes, with the Japanese closing fast all around them, the guys get two or three minutes to connect. Please spare me and save that stuff for the “Ya-Ya Sisterhood” movie.
Thank God for the explosions though – they are the only thing worth investing your time in “Windtalkers”. What an embarrassment – I give it a “4.0” on the scale.
Friday, June 7th, 2002
I wasn’t planning on seeing this movie, let alone reviewing it, but they put plenty of commercials for it in the NBA playoffs, so I figured I’d give it a shot. By the way, I saw this movie in a very white neighborhood and I was the only one in the theatre.
Which is too bad because this is, so far, the funniest movie I’ve seen this year. “Undercover Brother” is a guy played by Eddie Griffin. Stuck in the 1970’s, he’s got the afro, the Cadillac and the soul. He stumbles into an underground network called “B.R.O.T.H.E.R.H.O.O.D”. They seek to preserve black culture which they believe peaked in the 70’s and has gone downhill ever since. As proof, they show how we went from James Brown and Shaft to Uerkel and Theo Huxtable. Who’s responsible for this? It’s the “Man” – the evil white power brokers who want to keep the black man in his place. Sounds a bit serious, doesn’t it? Well, it’s not. It’s in fact hilarious and no one is spared.
After undercover brother teams up with the “Brotherhood”, their first big mission is to find out what the “Man” did to the first black man who was expected to run for President. He’s a Colin Powell type played by Billy Dee Williams and instead of announcing his bid for the presidency, he announces he’s opening a chain of fried chicken restaurants. I think the slogan is “The General will whip the Colonel”. Everything about this scene is a hoot, from the goofy T.V. newscasters who cover the press conference, to the look on the faces of Undercover Brother and his pals at the Brotherhood.
And what a group it is at the Brotherhood – there’s “The Chief”, who is a spoof on all those screaming black police captains in those cop movies (think “Beverly Hills Cop”). Then there’s “Sistah Girl”, the sassy one with the attitude who Undercover Brother already has the “hots” for. Then meet “Conspiracy Brother”, who believes in all of the legends that keep the black man down. Like the three point line in the NBA – to give the white man a chance. Or the fact that Spike Lee has not won an Academy Award but Cher has. “Conspiracy Brother” has a point there, doesn’t he? Finally, there’s “Smart Brother” – he runs the computer and figures out all the logistics. But I shouldn’t forget “Doogie Howser”, ah, Neil Patrick Harris, who plays the intern at the Brotherhood. Now how did that happen? Affirmative action policies, of course. This movie is funny – funny if you follow all of the race issues and love to see the satire and funny if you just want to see a silly movie.
It doesn’t get any sillier than a scene featuring a fight between “Sistah Girl” and one of the “Man’s” white women called “She Devil”. It ends up in the shower and turns into a lesbian kissing scene, all for the pleasure of Undercover Brother and the two white guys he’s fighting. Plus there are some great spoofs on white “culture”. One features a montage of some of our worst aspects like monster trucks and the Backstreet Boys. Undercover Brother is given a crash course and nearly dies from disgust. I certainly agreed when they got to the mayonnaise. What is it with white people and mayonnaise? It’s on everything – I went to a sandwich place recently and asked for chicken salad. They started spreading mayonnaise on the bread. The black people have us on that one.
“Undercover Brother” is only eighty minutes long, but I wanted more. Oh, I don’t want to forget to mention “Feather”, played by Chris Kattan. He’s the “Man’s” top henchman and he seems to really be a gay guy with a lot of soul. To top it off, it looks like the “Man” is actually a black guy when I got a look at his hand at the end of the movie. If you want some laughs, and this movie has tons of them, “Undercover Brother” is your best bet. I give it a “9.0”.
