Reviews & Previews - Dumb and Dumber and Dumbest Part III

Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2008 at 06:00 PM

Dumb and Dumber and Dumbest Part III

Minority Report

I guess the chemistry between Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise somehow acts like a catalyst for dumb plot holes because this week brings us another gem from the duo. If you remember the idiocy that was Minority Report, well then, I feel sorry for you. Those were two hours I could have spent gouging my own eyes out and that would have made for a less painful night than watching this hot ghetto mess.

Any more introductory words wasted on this film would be like putting gold leaf on a sippy cup so let us move on to examine the plot holes in this film. And by plot holes I mean cinematic poop.

1. Relying on Miss Cleo

As we're not going to waste any time this week lets get right down to the biggest plot canyon with this movie first. Apparently in the future the legal system is relying on what amounts to a trio of fortune tellers who can apparently see "the future". So if you are going to commit a murder they will be able to see this ahead of time and the cops will then bust down your door and arrest you for a "Pre-Crime". I kid you not, this is the central premise of the movie. You will be arrested for a crime YOU DIDN'T COMMIT.

Forget for a moment the legal issues this creates, let's just look at the mechanics behind this genius idea from the future. Before you can be arrested for a murder there has to be some proof you are going to murder someone. So these three fortune tellers floating at police headquarters have these visions. Now I assume that they tested the visions first to make sure they were 100% accurate before beginning to arrest people for crimes they didn't commit.

THIS MEANS THEIR VISIONS MUST SEE THE FUTURE, not a possible future but the actual future. Hold that thought.

Now we see the weird future people and they see a murder happening. This prompts super Tom Cruise into action and his crack team of commandos race to the house and prevent the murder.

Uh..... I am no expert on seeing the future, but if the Pre-Cogs (who wrote this crap?!) were able to see the actual future then shouldn't they have seen Tom and his cop buddies busting through the door stopping the guy from killing his wife? If they could really see the future then yes, the visions they saw should have been THE ARREST, NOT THE MURDER. This means they can't see the future, they can see a possible future...even then that's a bit iffy.

I don't know how much these Pre-Cogs were getting paid but even at $2.99 per minute it was probably too much. These were nothing but futuristic phone line scammers.

2. Underpaid Security

At some point during the movie our boy Tom is flagged by the Pre-Cogs as a murderer. So of course Tom decides now is a good time to get the hell of dodge and becomes a fugitive and the police begin chasing him. To avoid the eye scanners that are all around the city Tom gets himself a new set of eyeballs from the local eye ball shop or something.

Then we see Tom breaking back into the police station to bust out one of the Pre-Cogs. To get past the security retina scanner he has to use one of is old eyeballs. Uh......let me understand this right. If I am a janitor somewhere and get fired from my job they will deactivate my security passes and cards but no one at POLICE HEADQUARTERS bothered to take away Tom's security clearance? Come on man!!! Due to circumstances.....this is just stupid!!

3. Undue Complications.

The central plot of the film is the chief of the Pre-Cog program who is all villainous and what not tries to set Tom Cruise up for murder. They go into this whole goofy explanation about how he hired someone to kill one of the mothers of the Pre-Cogs so that he could use her for his program. It involves having someone kill the woman or pretend to or something and then the chief kills her.

The reason I don't bother to watch it again to get it straight is because we find out that all that planning was totally unnecessary. Turns our the Pre-Cogs can't see any murders happening outside the city. So instead of using his evil genius plan the chief could have just invited the victim somewhere far away from the city and busted a cap.

So in trying to be all smart by giving us this confusing plan the movie just hilights another plot hole to drag down the film.

As an added bonus, after we find out the Pre-Cogs can only see really traumatic events like murders and not run of the mill things like rape, the lead Pre-Cog proceeds to demonstrate how she can see things like where people are going to be looking in the next 5 seconds. Uh....so much for the traumatic event angle.

My friend from the movie company sent me part of the script from the movie that didn't make it into the final cut. Enjoy.

Scene: Police Headquarters

Tom: Check it out, the Pre-Cogs have identified a murder, let's bust him.

Technician: But the vision shows the guy killing his wife.

Tom: Yeah that's why we bust him.

Technician: But if we stop him shouldn't the visions show us arresting him? Otherwise doesn't that mean the vision is wrong?

Tom: Yeah...uh....

Technician: And if the vision actually showed us arresting him then wouldn't that mean that we have no evidence of a murder so we can't arrest him?

Tom: Uh....Scientology rules, you are being glib!