In the upcoming Fall 2015 TV season, we have a couple of new shows derived from hit movies; The 2011 Bradley Cooper film Limitless spins off its story as a series on CBS this Fall, and the 2002 Tom Cruise hit Minority Report does the same on FOX. Unfortunately for Minority Report, it doesn’t do so in a satisfying or convincing way.
Minority Report Interview: EPs on the ‘Reverse of the Traditional Detective’ Series>>>
The Plot
The idea behind the series was simple enough. A little over ten years after the events of the film which had the Pre-Crime system shut down, and the Pre-Cogs freed to live a normal life, one of the three Pre-Cogs, Dash (Stark Sands), returns to Washington DC. He is set on using his abilities to stop crime from happening as he and his siblings had once done, but being that Dash is only one-third of the operation, he and his new partner Vega (Meagan Good) must figure out how the crime will happen and put a stop to it, without anyone knowing what they’re up to.
Dialogue and Performance
Unfortunately, the concept of this plot is executed in a way that leaves the audience intrigued. The original film had a tone that, though based on a far out hypothetical science fiction technology, still managed to feel grounded because of how human Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell and everyone else were. In this crime serial, all the relationships and general mannerisms of the characters feel far too surface-level and insincere. Maybe it’s just the lack of Spielberg’s direction, but the acting feels very forced and the dialogue full of easy throwaway one-liners (relating to fans by name-dropping Tinder), predictable banter and overly explained plotlines.
Meet the Cast of Minority Report>>>
Will They, Won’t They
Besides the poor dialogue and over-the-top cheesy performances, the relationships between the characters are very predictable and still manage to lack chemistry. Take the relationship between Dash and Vega. One’s a hard-hitting and quick detective who doesn’t take crap from anyone and the other is a nervous mess who always manages to prove most helpful at just the right time. Unfortunately, there is no chemistry between Dash and Vega and the two just don’t play off of each other in a pleasing way. You’re unsure if their relationship is to be like brother and sister, lovers, or just two professional colleagues, but either way, you really don’t care. It’s even heavily implied (and with absolutely no subtlety) that Vega has a sticky past relationship with Detective Will Blake (Wilmer Valderamma) who has since become her superior.
All in all, the series is no different than any other buddy cop series on television, except that it doesn’t have the chemistry that many others do and tries to make up for it with flashy, futuristic police gadgets. Minority Report sticks to a very strict crime serial formula which leaves the viewer able to predict “twists” in advance. Fans of the original movie shouldn’t turn to this series for a continuation to its original tone. While it’s entertaining to hear small callbacks to the film and even its much smaller characters, it’s not enough to give this series momentum.
Watch the official trailer for Minority Report:
Minority Report premieres Tuesday, September 22 on FOX.
(Image courtesy of FOX)
Contributing Writer, BuddyTV
