I was never a Tom Cruise fan. He was always the romantic pretty boy. But his last two movies, Vanilla Sky and now Minority Report, have made me a fan. And I have always liked a good Spielberg film. This film is not just a great expo for Spielberg special effects, it is a great thriller a la Hitchcock.

Set in 2054, murders are elinated due to `precogs' seeing the future. Max Von Sydow is the head of the Precog corporation (in typical Von Sydow style). Cruise is the Chief of the crew that prevents these murders before they happen, and the movie takes off when he becomes the target of one of these `visions'. He has to overcome incredible odds to prove he wasn't going to commit the murder the precog's predicted. But, TRUST ME, there is SO much more to the action than this short synopsis. I left it this way on purpose. If I tell all, it will ruin the effect of the movie.

About the cinematography...this is a dark film, and the whole movie is shot in near black and white. All the hues are toned down, and this sets the mood for the futuristic attitude (much like M. Night Shaymalan's Unbreakable) showing that there is no individuality. The fururistic vision of personalized advertising via retinal scanning is absolutely scary. I guarantee I will close my eyes in the future...

The sound is GREAT (for those of us with DTS). You hear rain drops to the side, and bubbles from the precog tank to the left. Absolutely SUPERB.

This is one of the best sci-fi thrillers I have seen this year. Again, this is not just a sci-fi movie. This is an excellent murder mystery not to be ignored.

If you have read my reviews in the past, you know I don't review poor films. Trust me, you will want to see this movie. I mean it.

In the future, the problem of wanton homicide has been solved in Washington D.C. by the creation of a "PreCrime" division. PreCrime uses a complicated mental/visual process to identify murders before they occur, and give the detectives enough time to locate the scene of the upcoming crime and stop the murder. As a result of this strategy, premeditated murder almost never happens in D.C., and the unit has managed to stop all the murders that would have occurred due to "crimes of passion" by their quick diagnosis and high-tech tools that deliver them to the site of the crime, in time to stop it. The film opens with a demonstration of the technique that is so well done, fearlessly led by Cruise, that viewers have few questions of the complicated mechanisms of the process. How do the murders get predicted? Mysteriously, three humans with highly trained precognitive powers (The "Pre-cogs"), join mental forces to project and even act out the crimes. How the criminal justice system handles the pre-cogs, and how it handles the criminals convicted of "premurder" is the most chilling part of the movie. The viewer is drawn inescapably into a plot to frame Anderton himself for a future murder of a man he doesn't even know. The investigation of his own crime will draw you in and keep you paranoid about the action and the outcome until the film concludes.

Cruise is perfect for this film - a film chameleon; he gives us an action hero that is believable and empathetic. He's not trying for an Oscar here, in this action adventure flick; he's just making the movie work. His flawed and grieving character is really the only well developed of the movie's many roles - Spielberg correctly lets the astonishing special effects drive the film. Spielberg also has been seeking redemption. His "Artificial Intelligence" was a huge disappointment. Paired with cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (who will probably win an Oscar), with whom he has worked successfully in recent years, Spielberg gives us special effects worthy of the Indiana Jones series.

Colin Farrell plays the FBI agent who is Anderton's nemesis (a role originally planned for Matt Damon, who would have been more successful). The incredible career of Max Von Sydow continues as he has his biggest and best role on the big screen in years. Von Sydow has, of late, turned to cable television to find the haughty, regal and demanding roles for which he is known ("Citizen X" on HBO, "Solomon", and his turn as a humble Jew in "Nuremburg"). Prior to those, he was appearing with frequency on the big screen but in sleepers like "Druids", the Eurohorror flick, "Sleepless", and the endless "Snow Falling on Cedars". Von Sydow is impeccable in the role of Anderton's mentor, Director Burgess. His passion for the PreCrime experiment is exceeded only by Anderton's own passion. Steve Harris ("The Practice"), Daniel London and Samantha Morton are notable, but perhaps my favorite character role went to Lois Smith, a crusty genius with a greenhouse that will make you lose sleep. You've seen Smith everywhere, and just didn't know it (Helen Hunt's Aunt Meg in Twister, Susan Sarandon's mother in "Dead Man Walking", to name two). Her character, Dr. Iris Hineman, helped Burgess create PreCrime, and it is she who gives Anderton the clue needed to deal with his impending doom. A movie that will really hold your interest, potentially a boxoffice and DVD smash!

On paper the teaming of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise for Minority Report, a movie based upon a Philip K Dick short story, looks a sure-fire winner but then so did Vanilla Sky. The problem is movies aren't made on paper but whereas Vanilla Sky was a great disappointment, thankfully, this is not the case with the excellent (but very cold) futuristic noir thriller Minority Report.

As previously mentioned, Minority Report is based on a Phillip K Dick short story and is similar in tone to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, which was subsequently made into the rather excellent cult classic, and benchmark for all subsequent sci-fi movies, BladeRunner. Set only 52 years in the future, Tom Cruise plays Detective John Anderton, a driven cop with a self-medicating drug habit, still haunted by the abduction and disappearance of his son, whilst in his care, at a public swimming pool five years previously. Anderton is chief of the Washington DC Pre-Crime police unit, whose SWAT teams stop murders before they can be committed by swooping down from the heavens and arresting the future perpetrators before they can carry out their intended crimes.

Pre-crime is reliant upon the visionary powers of three "pre-cogs"; apparent mutated shadows of human beings, interconnected by computer whilst floating in a tank of water, in a semi-comatose state, at police headquarters. Their dream-like premonitions are displayed on a giant screen, the images conducted and deciphered by a cyber-gloved Cruise, as coloured wooden balls bearing the name of both the prospective victim and perpetrator, roll down plastic tubes like this weeks 'winning' lottery numbers. There is no apparent debate about civil liberties because the pre-cogs are never wrong, nobody gets hurt and the capital's murder rate is down to zero, making it a very desirable system for federal law enforcers. The pre-crime system is almost ready to go national. However, just when everything seems to be going swimmingly Detective Anderton's balls drop (down the plastic tube that is), as the pre-cognitives identify him as a future murderer in a vision on the big screen. As he's in charge and convinced the premonition is fake, he has the opportunity to go on the run in order to prove his innocence, an opportunity denied to every person he's arrested for the past six years.

Minority Report is an excellent and exhilarating ride into the future, full of action, suspense, FX and more twists and turns than a country road. Spielberg's collaboration with the late great Stanley Kubrick (on A.I.) has obviously left an impression in that Minority Report has a distinctly Kubrickian cold alienation about it. In many ways it looks and feels very un-like a Spielberg movie except for the Hitchockian (or Spielbergian if you like) type suspense and mass of product placement (from Gap to Bulgari and Guinness). It is also very much unlike any previous Tom Cruise vehicle, which is refreshing, although some parallels in the action sequences could obviously be drawn to the Mission Impossible movies. However both Spielberg and Cruise are on top form here, ably supported by Max Von Sydow and an all too smooth Colin Farrell (Tigerland) and a virtually unrecognisable Samantha Morton (Sweet and Lowdown). Much credit should also go to cinematographer Janusz Kaminski, and Scott Farrar, visual effects supervisor from Industrial Light and Magic, who helped make Minority Report a work of art.

Intelligent, very entertaining, ingenious and dark. Minority Report is another great success to add to Mr Spielberg's and Mr Cruise's very impressive CV's. 4.5 stars.