A FEARFUL FUTURE
I am wary of futurist dystopias, but this is a real treat: intelligent sci-fi with serious thrills. As it opens, we are the 2050 audience at the celebration of ten years of “British Pre Crime” : we hear that in 2040 a referendum agreed with the plan to implant “neuropins” in all citizens, behind the ear and near the brain. Through these transmitters a central cadre of trained “precogs” can scan powerful computers every sixty seconds for any sign of amygdala activity indicating a preparation, even subconscious, for violence. Each pre-murderer, who may have no idea the killing is brewing inside them, gets put in a Humane Detention Centre. And bingo! Suddenly the streets are safe. Rebels in “Cogito” (yes, ergo sum, you gottit) break in to demonstrate in favour of free and private thought, and are severely quelled.
Our heroine Julia – Jodie McNee in a truly barnstorming performance- is CEO of Pre Crime, dedicating herself to it in memory of a murdered sister. But the computer suddenly reveals she is a pre-killer herself: she has to gouge out her neuropin with a corkscrew and go on the run, aided by the Cogitos. Her husband George and smooth MP Ralph are not necessarily on her side: they are, after all believers, admitting openly that having a few accidental innocents picked up by the precogs is worth it for the scheme’s success.
It couldn’t be more timely, for all its fantasy. Not only are we rightly wary of AI and the pitiless judgment of algorithms in daily life (ask any HR computer analysing CVs) , but have seen the extraordinary recent idea that a “non-crime hate incident” can go on our record every time someone overhears a disobliging opinion. So topicality is all there, intelligently pre- cogged by the adaptor David Haig’s sharp contemporary references (delightfully, despite all the robotic taxis and video-programmed skyscrapers, the 2050 train still says Mind the Gap).
There is little space for character, but McNee and Nick Fletcher’s George express some realities of grief, jealousy and living with a partner’s obsession. And more widely the final scenes touch, melodramatically but without preaching, on truths about deterrence, moral self-mastery and redemption
The plot’s ancestor and skeleton is Philip K Dick’s Cold War novella; it became a Spielberg film. But Haig’s adaptation carves its own track, adjusting much and keeping the weirdest revelation – which Spielberg threw away to make max use of Samantha Morton with no hair – till near the end. It is bracingly theatrical and properly thrilling: full of gorgeous contemporary jokes – like the one about Apple watches being back as trendy retro toys, or as a robotic personal AI laser—- annoys its owner and is threatened by being de-programmed to be a mere Alexa, or worse, Siri.
There is also a lovely parallel laid before us in Max Webster’s sharp ninety minutes of accelerating direction. In the Pre Crime procedure human neurons are still needed – at a nasty price – to supplement machine learning. And here the fabulous scifi projections and near-holograms are combined with warm human messiness: wild crowd choreography in the street scenes and a lot of spectacularly athletic clambering and crawling by the fugitives, as they fight their way into weird laboratories over breathtaking frames and along high steel catwalks. McNee kicks out the window of two robotic taxis, beautifully. Jon Bausor’s design and Tal Rosner’s video projections combine breathtakingly, and the costumes have a lovely sly futurism , odd lapels on an MP’s pinstripe and peculiar jodphurs on Julia.
So anyone with a teenager who only does video games and chase movies can here, in historic theatre surroundings, convert them on the spot to understand that sometimes, live action by real people in the very room is irreplaceable. Loved it.
lyric.co.uk. To 18 may. Let’s hope it transfers.
Rating 4.
Sent from my iPad
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