Minority Report (2002)

Sweeeeeeeeeeet. When the dust from this honestly-quite-disappointing summer settles, this little number will rate as one of the few exciting and involving movies to rise above the flotsam. It's strikingly weird, too, maybe the strangest big-money vehicle ever conceived -- I would have never expected Tom Cruise to star in a film that called for him to, among other things, chase his own eyeballs down a hallway. I was also unaware that Spielberg's sense of humor skewed so far towards the bizarre -- some people have found this off-putting, but I'm a big fan of dryly digressive humor, especially when used as effectively as it is here. (See also: Signs.) Has a few less-than-impressive scenes (I found at least one element of the climax far too convenient, and the bit in the greenhouse rates down there with the boat ride in Dark City as one of the crappiest pure-exposition scenes to ever mar an otherwise-super movie), but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Grade: B+