The year is 2054...and there exists in the future, that "Minority Report" presents to us, a "pre-crime unit" in law enforcement comprised of three genetically enhanced-gone-wrong sorta, kinda, 'pre-cogs' at the core of the information given to law officers to predict who is going to commit murder in the near future. Once empowered by this information, Pre-Crime officers swoop in before the perpetrators of the sin of murder commit the act and are placed under arrest, and subsequent status via a mechanical 'halo', and jailed more or less frozen in a chamber with other supposed future offenders.  The movie is derived once again from a Phillip K. Dick short story (as was "Blade Runner", "A.I.", "Total Recall" and countless others) and given to us in typical Steven Spielberg mastery of film, complete with multi dimensional characters and vivid futuristic imagery, with realistic visions of what tomorrow may look like. 

 

Cruise's character is wonderfully developed here from his first appearance as a sort-of action hero coming to the rescue of a would-be victim of murder, to his questionable incrimination implicated by the pre-cogs' vision that he himself is going to commit murder.  The background history given to support him draws the audience in to care about him and his quest to discover what is going to happen, and why.  Colin Farrell plays in support as the villain (or is he?) who you suspect is framing Cruise for his future crime.  Max Von Sydow is also primarily in the plot and suspect of the framing for the same reasons.  Samantha Morton plays the pre-cog who helps Cruise along the way and guides him into making the right choices to help his future, which prove to be tougher for him to play out than he realizes. 

 

The story doesn't play out as a whodunit as much as a who'lldoit, if you can get the gist of that.  The first half hour or so plays out rather confusingly, and would lead you to believe, once you've seen the movie in its entirety, that it was meant to be viewed more than once, which I believe is the case.  But as you pay attention and the show forges forward, your rewards for keeping track come in abundance in the last quarter of the movie.  The resolution at the end of the movie, whether a happy ending or not, leaves you feeling satisfied that you've actually invested the time and energy to give it a chance in the first place.  This is yet another tour-de-force for Spielberg.

 

 

Lots of hype followed this movie around as it hit theatres October 18, 2002.  Strong word of mouth got around as the movie crept up to the number one spot in the box office and became the sleeper hit of the year last year.  I was skeptical.  Since "Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2", horror movies seemed to get schlockier and cuter, with too much emphasis on the humerous anecdotes to supposedly relieve an audience that couldn't handle the scare quotient.  After I'd seen the second "Scream" movie, I'd had enough, and didn't see another horror show since.  If you'd actually call the "Scream" movies 'horror'. 

 

"The Ring" finally comes to the rescue for this seemingly dead genre.  Though I did have some problems with some of the plot points, which I'll explain in a minute, "The Ring" exposes its audience to some genuinely scary scenes and images meant to imbed into your brain and have you talk about it, just to comfort yourself if nothing else.  This is the kind of scare that's been missing from horror movies for nearly two decades.  It's not a perfect movie by any means, but with talk of sequels to come, it may answer some nagging questions about a lot of loose ends left by Verbinski's chill-a-thon remake of the Japanese "Ringu". 

 

Main character Naomi Watts, playing Rachel Keller, finds her neice literally scared to death at the beginning of the film and embarks on an investigative journey to discover how and why it occurred.  Come to find out that three of her neice's friends died on the same night, at the same time.  And in the same city.  This is the first thing that perplexed me.  The police didn't clue in to this fact and investigate it themselves, the fact that four kids died on the same night at the same time of evidently the same causes.  But in the name of entertainment, I let it go. 

 

Rachel enlists her ex-boyfriend, Noah, with whom she has a child to try to figure out what's behind a ghoulish and threatening videotape that she's watched that she got from an old hotel.  As it turns out, the four kids who died all watched the video, and as Rachel watches the tape of disturbing and haunting images herself, she gets a phone call telling her that she has seven days to live.  When Noah watches it and gets the same call, they become embroiled in a race against time to find out how to thwart the curse of the tape before they wind up like the four aforementioned kids. 

 

There are truly some scary moments and visuals in this movie.  Good acting all around by everyone and excellent directing efforts by Verbinski, who left much to be desired from his previous effort, "The Mexican".  Although the show degenerates into rather typical horror fare in the last fifteen minutes or so, the buildup leading towards it makes it forgivable, as the days count down to Rachel's foreboding death, with a preview of what may happen through Noah, which is where the movie's biggest problem is with me.  The ending is left wide open with questions galore, leaving room for a sequel, which may equal its predecessor or cheapen it, something we'll have to wait and see about.

 

 

 

 

Movie:  Memento (Guy Pearce, Carrie Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano)  Directed by Chris Nolan