Tag Archives: Kathryn Morris

2002 Films, Action, Crime Thriller, Guy Films, Science Fiction, Thriller

Minority Report-2002

Leave a comment

Minority Report-2002

Director Steven Spielberg

Starring Tom Cruise

Scott’s Review #1,318

Reviewed November 27, 2022

Grade: B+

If you study his body of film work, the fascinating thing about acclaimed director Steven Spielberg is the growth and groundbreaking cross-genre categorization of many of his films.

Traversing blockbuster popcorn films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-terrestrial (1982) to heavy drama with the 1993 masterpiece Schindler’s List, the man can do it all.

With 2002’s Minority Report, he bravely delves into science-fiction territory with a crime thriller and action tint.

The film is tough to follow and mostly reminds me of Inception (2010), a Christopher Nolan film influenced by it.

Despite its cerebral tone, Minority Report is a fascinating study of futuristic crime-fighting styles with enough twists and turns to keep you engaged.

It turned out well, though I confess that at times I had no real idea what was going on plot-wise.

The casting of Tom Cruise is a major win. Who better to carry a film like this, except maybe Bruce Willis, though Cruise is a better actor. Nonetheless, he is believable as a crime chief with a slick edge and a wicked smile.

Unsure whether to trust him, he remains at the heart of the film’s success.

Based on a story by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, ‘Minority Report’ contains a perfect premise to bring to the big screen.

Set in Washington, D.C. in 2054, police are now intelligent enough to utilize psychic technology to arrest and convict murderers before they commit their crimes.

The setup is fabulous and rife with possibilities.

Cruise plays Chief John Anderton, the head of this Precrime unit, and is himself accused of the future murder of a man he hasn’t even met.

Following an audit, it is predicted that in thirty-six hours, Anderton will kill a man who is a stranger to Anderton. Anderton flees, prompting a search led by a searcher (Colin Farrell).

It is revealed that Anderton joined the Precrime program after his son was kidnapped and never found. He is depressed, withdrawn, and addicted to hard drugs, and his wife Lara (Kathryn Morris) has since left him.

But is this all a setup, and are others involved in the conspiracy?

The plot goes way off the rails in terms of explanation or logic, but the fun is in trying to put the never-ending puzzle pieces together. Truthfully, after a while, I simply gave up and enjoyed the visual eye candy and terrific futuristic style.

I rarely am a proponent of visuals over storytelling, but the intelligence of the sequences and the thrilling nature of the acting assured me there was something there.

I just wasn’t completely getting it.

Since Spielberg directs it, I was confident that the complexities I was being served were not shit. I was comforted by this knowledge, and my enjoyment escalated.

Enough props can’t be given for Cruise’s dynamic performance, heightened by the coldness and harshness of the film’s overall tone.

Many of Spielberg’s films are heartwarming, but that was not the case in Minority Report (2002), and I liked it even more for that reason.

Spielberg gets another win by suckering me into a cinematic world that he can magically create. This time with perplexities and perhaps even some influence from the Matrix (1999) movies.

Oscar Nominations: Best Sound Editing

2001 Films, Drama, Science Fiction

A.I. Artificial Intelligence-2001

Leave a comment

A.I. Artificial Intelligence- 2001

Director Steven Spielberg

Starring Haley Joel Osment

Scott’s Review #1,052

Reviewed August 13, 2020

Grade: B+

A bit of a history lesson about the film A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001).

The final cinematic version is based on the 1969 short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” by Brian Aldiss, which director Stanley Kubrick purchased and developed in the 1970s.

Left unfinished for years, and the subsequent passing of Kubrick after he had started to collaborate with Steven Spielberg, the film was finally carved into a final project by Spielberg.

Upon close study, the film possesses the mark of both directors, with the edge going to Spielberg.

The tone of the story contains a creepiness and oddity familiar to fans of Kubrick, like he may have been thinking along the lines of a similar theme to the brilliant 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Both center around robots and a futuristic world. Spielberg adds a humanistic, sympathetic, and slightly melancholy edge as he did with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), so that we adore the main character and want justice for him.

In contrast, Kubrick made his version of an extra-terrestrial in 2001: A Space Odyssey a scary villain.

The results are mostly good, but uneven in parts.

The premise is solid and grasps our attention. The time is the twenty-second century, when the polar ice caps have melted, submerging many coastal cities. It’s also a time when humans live side by side with “mechas,” or sentient robots.

Henry and Monica Swinton are suffering because their son Martin has a rare disease and is placed in suspended animation.

They are given a Mecha child who can experience love.

Henry and Monica fall in love with David and, in a plot twist worthy of a daytime soap opera, Martin returns to life, becomes jealous of David in a plot reminiscent of The Good Son (1993), tries to frame David for monstrous deeds, and David is nearly shipped off to parts unknown.

This is Spielberg’s first crack at screenwriting in nearly twenty-five years, since Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and he does a decent job.

It’s no secret that both films, along with E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, share common themes, so he feels comfortable with these subjects.

The humanity is there, but the screenplay is often too busy with story points coming and going at a rapid pace.

I wanted a deeper dive into Henry and Monica to understand their characters better and what makes them tick. I felt their pain of having (sort of) lost a child, but not why they needed to fill the void so quickly.

Osment is extremely good in a film so complex that other elements could easily have overshadowed his performance.

Instead, he powers through, adding complexities to a character the audience falls in love with, aching and yearning along with him. David is faced with terrible, life-changing news of not only being adopted but of not even being human.

His determination to find out who he truly is takes the viewer down a path of both entertainment and adventure, but also of bitter emotion.

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) has a lot going on, and critically speaking, maybe too much. Spielberg fleshes out the original short story and tasks the viewer with enduring a global warming message, important, but a trite overdone, and sympathizing with David, the lonely robot boy.

The story becomes an exciting adventure, and the complexities of being human and almost human are explored, though not quite satisfactorily.

Osment and Law are terrific with dazzling chemistry, and the visuals and musical score are astounding. Osment should have received a Best Actor Oscar nomination, following the one he received for The Sixth Sense (1999).

Oscar Nominations: Best Musical Score, Best Visual Effects

2015 Films, Independent, Independent Western, Western

Bone Tomahawk-2015

Leave a comment

Bone Tomahawk-2015

Director S. Craig Zahler

Starring Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Richard Jenkins

Scott’s Review #403

80075001

Reviewed May 10, 2016

Grade: B+

Bone Tomahawk is a film from 2015 that almost nobody saw or heard of, and is a unique independent horror/western hybrid. It has strong influences on Quentin Tarantino and contains an impressive cast for such a low-profile film.

Bone Tomahawk is the proverbial diamond in the rough and is worth seeing for film fans with patience enough to sit through the slow-moving pace to get to the good stuff.

It largely comes in the final thirty minutes of the film.

Notably, the film was recognized by the Independent Film Committee and received two Spirit Awards, for Best Supporting Male (Richard Jenkins), and Best Screenplay.

It won neither.

The film does not have a “star”, but rather a myriad of heavy hitters in a clear ensemble. Kurt Russell plays Franklin Hunt, sheriff of a tiny town named Bright Hope, presumably somewhere in the west (Wyoming?) circa 1890. His deputy sheriff, Chicory,  is played by Jenkins.

When drifters kill some travelers, they accidentally stumble upon a mysterious Native American burial ground and taint its contents, leaving one brutally murdered by the tribe.

The other (played by David Arquette) stumbles into Bright Hope and is immediately deemed suspicious. When he, a female Doctor’s assistant, and a young local man disappear, it is realized that they have been abducted by the owners of the burial ground, who are feared to be cannibalistic savages.

Hunt, Chicory, a foreman named Arthur (the doctor’s assistant’s wife), played by Patrick Wilson, and a local playboy played by Matthew Fox, decide to trek long terrain to find and rescue the missing.

The pace is slow and will undoubtedly turn off some folks seeking slicker, high-tech viewing, or even some CGI, but the payoff for patience is immense.

The group’s trek through the desert in pursuit of the accosted seems endless, and I did have thoughts of what the point was, but the forthcoming turn of events makes this tedium worth it.

In defense of the long plodding journey, this aspect does make the audience get to know and begin to care about the characters- some make it out alive, others are not as lucky. The fun part is finding out who does and doesn’t.

Bone Tomahawk contains one of the most gruesome scenes that I have ever witnessed in my thousands of viewed films. A male character, nude, is brutally scalped and a spear is hammered into his throat in full view of the prisoners.

As if this is not shocking enough, he is then turned upside down, split down the middle, and chopped in half, as his insides spill to the ground. The snapping sounds of his bones and the visual horror of the guts are even tough for the non-squeamish to view.

It is uncanny that Kurt Russell plays a similar character in another 2015 film, the much higher profile, The Hateful Eight. Sure, he is a bounty hunter, but the period, setting, and costumes are almost identical.

One might wonder which was made first.

Bone Tomahawk is a guy’s movie, but not in the traditional sense- there are no explosions, no unnecessary machismo, or apparent clichés.

But at the end of the day, it is a Western and the cast is mainly male. Besides the Doctor’s assistant, the only other females are wives with small roles.

The most glaring is Sean Young- given hardly anything to do in a cameo appearance. Otherwise, the Native American females, blind, deaf, pregnant, and missing appendages are the only other females in sight.

A unique hybrid of film genres, Bone Tomahawk (2015) is a clever, different experience.

I am a champion of independent film and this film is a good example of why I am. Evidently, with a stellar cast of A-list or former A-list stars banding together to make a piece of art, it seems others champion good films too.

Independent Spirit Award Nominations: Best Supporting Male-Richard Jenkins, Best Screenplay