alastair_m

this was generally a well mounted production but i came away feeling that it was good when it could have been great some of the music was regrettably lame film isn't Broadway and i think such things should be taken into consideration but for every song that made me cringe there were at least two that sold me beyond that, the major fault i found with the film was the cutting and camera movements in the musical sequences abundant cutting can help a scene's rhythm and feeling but my main feeling with musicals is that this rhythm and vivacity should be communicated by the performances the camera should be a passive observer this sort of cutting is better suited to music videos which only have a few minutes to leave their mark in a feature length film, it can be tiresome jennifer hudson's performance for her big song is everything it needs to be without however many cuts there are in the sequence the amount of camera movement also deemphasized movements that would have been more impressive had they not been lost in a sea of mobile framing (the arcing motion that leaves the dreams in a silhouette against an adoring audience)

i'm not saying that there should be no cutting or movement in a musical sequence, but as these techniques are employed in this film, they distract from the real stars the cast was solid all around and the film's strongest asset hudson and murphy both dynamite

i totally bought beyonce foxx made an excellent slimeball without completely abandoning our sympathy supporting players distinct, developed, fun and likable it's the sort of story that's been told a million times that's why i feel a story isn't necessarily as important as how its told the material here felt like it was exciting and important to all involved but it didn't entirely escape the clichés of its trappings, which i acknowledge is a tall order

i respected the film in general more than i liked it but keep trying Hollywood you might just make another real musical yet

A lot of people probably went to see "Road to Perdition" simply for the fact that Sam Mendes directed. I know that's why I went to it. The fact that it has Tom Hanks and Paul Newman in it and that it's a gangster movie are pretty attractive too, so I probably would have seen it had it been placed under someone else's direction; but tonight, I had Mendes on the mind.

Exposition seems pretty obsolete here on the imdb because loads of other people will have already done that for me and a lot of the people reading this will be reading it because they want to see how many people liked or didn't like a movie they did or didn't. So until I get paid for it, I'll spare myself that aspect of my review.

For the most part, the cast is well known and highly respectable and we know that these people are going to do a good job in just about anything. And here they do that, as one might suspect.

So much of the scrutiny directed towards the movie will be focused towards Mendes because he made such an assured debut. So does "Road" measure up to "American Beauty"? I don't think so. But the latter was pretty amazing, so I'm no going to begrudge Mendes for following something great with something that's simply good.

I liked "Road to Perdition." I liked the story. I liked the cast and its dynamic. I loved how it looked. But something WAS missing. Unlike "American Beauty", "Road to Perdition" lacks identification between audience and film. Not everybody is like gangsters, some might say, so how can one expect one to identify with the plights they face. "The Godfather" got it right. The Corleones were gangsters, yes, but they were isolated in their own sort of world that held many parallels to that of the general population. In "Road" we never forget who's really good or (mostly) bad and that creates a lack of sympathy, I think. Part of what Lester Burnham wanted was wrong but oh, how we identified with him.

"Road to Perdition" was good and I'm glad I saw it. Its heart was in the right place and it's a respectable production. And I await Mendes next effort as eagerly as this one.

7/10

It seems that most very good movies that we see now are smaller films. The big-budget studio jobs insult our intelligence more and more but corporate ass holes keep on making them because people keep on watching. But when you think of the better movies of even just the last year, many of them (Gosford Park, Monster's Ball, Innocence, Amélie, In the Bedroom and Ghost World) are more obscure films that I can't see unless I sit on a bus for two hours. The Fast Runner hasn't even come to my local theatre, and I'm Canadian, and it seems to be one of the best Canadian projects ever. So it's refreshing when a major, major release finds a way of being complicated, involving and exciting all at the same time. Plus it shows that somebody is confident that the general public's brains are more than just mush.

Minority Report is a tightly woven, emotional, thrilling story. It has action, but is more than just an action movie. Even though it takes place more than fifty years in the future, against a vivid, technically enhanced backdrop, its characters, their motives, and everything about it has a universal tone than rings true, more than many of the lame brained movies which take place at present. Plus, it's the most entertaining movie I've seen this year.

Most people reading this will know that Tom Cruise plays John Anderton, a pre-crime cop who goes on the lamb with one of the murder predicting pre-cogs, Agatha (Samantha Morton), after he is identified as someone who will soon commit a murder. Anymore exposition would be unnecessary and possibly spoiling.

The solid, capable cast also includes Max von Sydow and Colin Farrell, but the best performances of the movie belong to Cruise and Morton. Cruise is always real, with his added classic movie star appeal, in one of his best performances. He doesn't play up being the emotionally tortured work-alcoholic that he is, which, in a roundabout way, augments the pathos evoked for that aspect of his character. Morton takes a role that could have been totally cornball and overwrought and makes Agatha's sickliness credible; and her weird mutterings don't come off as some actor trying to be "weird".

The only way a movie like this could get made is with a director behind it who has the studio's confidence behind him, 100%. Nobody has that more than Steven Spielberg who, with movies like E.T. and Jaws, has always found a way of perfectly blending special effects with the story instead of coming off as showy. His pacing feels natural, instead of formulaic; a trait which has proven him one of the most solid storytellers in the movies. He succeeds in Minority Report where he didn't in A.I. Adding humor where it fits in perfectly, choosing a moral dilemma we can identify with and knowing when it's time to end the thing, although I felt it waned slightly, very slightly, towards the end. Maybe I just need to see it again.

If you generally like Steven Spielberg's work, wanted to like A.I., and like what movies are all about, you should definitely see Minority Report.