"Minority Report," which works brilliantly as a slick future thrill ride, is a half effort, a poke at noir. The filmmaker demonstrates no stomach for the genre's ink-black shades. He warms its frigid psychological palette with his cuddly thematic obsession, children and the family unit, and typically encourages the free-range assault of John Williams' musical tidal waves. (If Spielberg was half as courageous an artist he thinks he is, he would lose career collaborator Williams for a composer who knows the power of omission.)

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Originally posted by jeffy:
From Chris Garcia, the film critic at The Austin (Texas) American-Statesman:

(If Spielberg was half as courageous an artist he thinks he is, he would lose career collaborator Williams for a composer who knows the power of omission.)

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I like this sentiment, because I currently feel the same way. Sure, it may be blashpemy to call out Spielberg's laziness when it comes to composers, but dang, a fresh squeeze of something else would be very interesting. The Spielberg scores of "yor" are and always will be awesome, no question, but lately I've been slightly turned off. I don't know why I feel this way, but I do. There are excellent moments in Minority Report, but it's too much of an effort to wade through the massive drone to find it. The CD album is way too long for my tastes.

Spielberg has mixed it up before, though. While It's noted that Williams has done every film he's made- it's technically not true on two counts:

The Color Purple- the music was handled by Quincy Jones which was a sensible and perfect choice.

Twilight Zone: the Movie- he directed the vignette "Kick The Can" as well as serving in Executive Producer duties. The music was, it goes without saying for here, handled by Goldsmith.

It's possible in the future that there may be changes- unfortunately, both men are aging (another fact that goes without saying), and at some point, Spielberg may need to have a different collaborator rather than want.

The formula maybe getting stale for some folks- but that's why I recommend you not get EVERYTHING these two have done together. A couple, sure, but not all of it. There's no way things can ever be like E.T. or Raiders- and thank god, I'd rather those, despite sequels in respect to Raiders, be unique to themselves.

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Originally posted by Widescreen:
My only caveat about Minority Report is the lack of a synthesized piece somewhere in the score. It's the future: I personally perfer the sounds like we get in Runaway or Blade Runner- or even the blend in Total Recall. But Minority Report isn't these movies- and thank god, because it is just fantastic on it's own. The ending could've been cut back a bit or tweaked to show resolutions for characters in different ways- but nonetheless, I haven't had this much fun at a Spielberg movie in a LONG TIME.

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Me too. I think Jurassic Park was the last one where I had unbridled fun (i haven't used the word "unbridled" in a long time!).

Anyway, I just wanted to point out something you may have missed, Widescreen. The point of the score was to reference the past, namely the film noirs of Hitchcock that used very black-and-white shades to score scenes. To use synth would be breaking this premise (though there are small bits of electronics in the score, it's not like "The Moon Rising" from A.I.).