LaReeca Rucker has been a journalist for more than 30 years, and her work has appeared in newspapers across the nation. She spent a decade as a features writer and multimedia journalist with The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson, Mississippi, where she was also a USA TODAY contributor. She is a freelance journalist and adjunct instructional assistant professor at the University of Mississippi's School of Journalism and New Media in Oxford, Mississippi.

Destiny eliminates free choice in 'Minority Report'

LaReeca Rucker
The Clarion-Ledger

It seems a bit like a hodgepodge of other sci-fi tales. Elements of "Harrison Burgeron," "Fahrenheit 451," and "1984" are all a part of "Minority Report," but the concept is unique and worthy of attention.

In a scene very similar to one in Stanley Kubrick’s "A Clockwork Orange," a surgeon pries open Tom Cruise's eyes, plucks them out and replaces them with a pair that once belonged to someone else.

That's how criminals evade authorities in the future. Forget your picture ID; police scan pupils to obtain identity and view digitially recorded psychic visions to locate suspects before they commit murders.

Cruise, the lead detective in charge of investigating psychic visions, suprisingly appears in one of the digital recordings as a future murderer. Therefore, Cruise’s character must escape and prove his innocence.

The most startling moments in the movie involve three psychic Pre-Cognitives. They sleep in a water tank at the police station, are treated like equipment by the government, and are diefied by the public because their ESP has made crime in Washington drop 90 percent.

Their power, said to be the result of a drug gone awry, is a bit far fetched. It would have been more plausible to say scientist had, by the year 2054, found a way to use the vast area of the brain we have no use for, and in a few people, a sixth sense developed.

Even if you can't wrap your mind around all of the futuristic concepts, the movie is worth watching for the director’s interesting vision. In 2054, police stations are unbelievably high-tech, plants will reach out and touch you and people view holograms like e-mail. George Lucas thought of this almost 20 years ago when he turned Princess Leia into a hologram in "Return of the Jedi."

The movie will make you think about the freedom we have, and whether or not technological advancements create liberties or ultimately take them away.

 

The Journalism Portfolio of LaReeca Rucker

 

The Journalism Portfolio of LaReeca Rucker