Saw this last night. I feel a bit odd describing what my expectations were. Normally I wouldn’t have expected anything short of “revolutionary” from a Spielberg movie, but after that twelve-bucks-and-three-hours-I’ll-never-get-back fiasco called A.I., I was actually expecting nothing short of “abysmal”.

Anyway, this was neither. I’d call it thoroughly entertaining, but not really thought-provoking. Of course, not all movies have to be thought-provoking, especially summer blockbusters. But this is a movie based on a story by Philip K. Dick, directed by Spielberg, so I’m forgiving myself for expecting some quality, and for comparing it with Blade Runner.

The vision of the future that Minority Report offers is much more detailed and realistic than that of A.I., and somewhat more optimistic than that of Blade Runner. The distinction between the various classes that exists today seems exacerbated in this vision of the future. The world seems cleaner, faster and safer for the middle and upper classes, while the underbelly of society has gotten even dirtier and more menacing.

The movie centers around a pilot project wherein crimes are prevented before they occur by using precognizants to predict them. This premise is interesting and well-developed enough to sustain interest throughout the (long) movie. However, the film does not explore too many of the philosophical implications of its premise, and it quickly becomes a simple whodunnit set in a cool future.

That’s too bad, because the rest is highly satisfying, from the character development to the original action scenes, well integrated into the storytelling. The CG was a lot better composited into the live-action stuff than in, say, Spiderman or Episode 2, and I’d have to say the special FX worked well overall in this movie. Something bugged me about the “jumping from Lexus hovercraft to Lexus hovercraft” scene (that we see in the trailer), like we didn’t really get a feel for the wind or speed of the action, but compared with the other two I just mentioned, this is forgiveable.

One thing that really pissed me off, however, was the shameless amount of product placement in this movie. In almost every scene, you have a blatantly placed parade of Lexus, Gap, Aquafina, Pepsi and Ben and Jerry logos… At least it was funny to see that even in 2054, The Gap still peddles clothes that are completely plain and absolutely devoid of any personality or style.

Finally, the film scores an extra half-point with me, for including a good amount of dialog in Swedish – always a good thing.

I think from this movie I’ll have to conclude that I’m a pretty tough crowd.