Minority Report

Minority Report

• John Williams - Minority Report Original Motion Picture Score - CD Brand New

While Steven Spielberg's sci-fi detective thriller revolves around the intriguing premise of future cops arresting criminals <I>before</I> their crimes, beneath its high-tech veneer it asks a simple but infinitely powerful question: Do we have the power to alter our own destiny? Coming on the heels of the director's posthumous collaboration with Stanley Kubrick, <I>A.I. Artificial Intelligence</I>, it also affords longtime Spielberg musical collaborator John Williams a rare back-to-back opportunity to construct a musical future-world. The composer's efforts here are largely a forceful departure from <I>A.I.</I>'s sparkling minimalist influences, employing an enduring cinematic cliché--that film futures often sound much like the works of early-20th-century serialist/modernist classical composers--that puts a compelling new spin on the ever slippery concept of postmodernism. If the cues here occasionally recall the jagged edges, dark corners, and rhythmic fury of some of Goldsmith's best sci-fi scores, it's only a tribute to both legends' deep musical roots and preternatural scoring instincts. But make no mistake, this is <I>pure</I> Williams at his most compelling, employing his full arsenal of technique and always masterful use of color to construct a new genre--call it "future noir"--from inspirations as diverse as Bartók, Ligeti, Penderecki, Webern, and Schoenberg. Like Herrmann's suspenseful scores for Hitchcock (one of the film's intentional musical touchstones), there may be nary a memorable melody in it, but it's a riveting--and occasionally harrowing--listen from opening bars to its final, minimalist-tinged string flourishes. <I>--Jerry McCulley</I>