June 21, 2002 | In Minority Report, the stunning sci-fi noir thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, the day after tomorrow doesn't appear at first glance to be very different from today. People still go shopping for clothes at The Gap, still read newspapers and magazines on public transit – and, no kidding, still watch Cops on television.

But look closer.

Shoppers are identified by retinal scans, matched with records of their past purchases – and addressed with personalized sales pitches. Newspapers and magazines are constantly updated, even as you hold them in your hands, while breaking stories are downloaded.

And more often than not, a typical Cops episode focuses on the Department of Pre-Crime, an innovative Washington D.C. program that employs info from precognitive mutants – or Pre-Cogs, to use Pre-Crime jargon – to identify murderers before they murder. The Pre-Crime cops are able to make pre-emptive arrests, and the pre-perpetrators are locked away before the actually do their bloody deeds.

The assumption being, of course, that those deeds inevitably would be done.

Based on a novella by the late Philip K. Dick, the visionary author who also inspired Blade Runner and Total Recall, Minority Report is a darkly dazzling futuristic drama that vividly imagines a brave new world where, in classic sci-fi tradition, a seemingly perfect system turns out to be terribly, fatally flawed.

The year is 2054, and the protagonist is John Anderton (Tom Cruise), chief of the Justice Department's elite Pre-Crime unit. For Anderton, Pre-Crime isn't a job, it's a mission. His young son was abducted six years ago, and never recovered. Obsessed with saving others from experiencing similar anguish, he eagerly and unquestioningly supports the pre-emptive process of arrest and imprisonment.

When the Pre-Cog visions appear as jumbles of overlapping images on the big computer screen at Pre-Crime headquarters, Anderton personally parses the info, resembling an inspired maestro at some orchestra podium as he gracefully waves his hands this way, then that way, to sharpen his focus on the scene of the pre-crime. He haughtily dismisses the skeptical questions raised by an annoying FBI overseer, Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell, coming off rather jarringly as a young Treat Williams). Pre-Crime works so flawlessly, Anderton argues, that he and director Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) should be allowed to expand the program beyond Washington, D.C., to make the entire nation a safer place.

But then comes the day when Anderton sees himself in a Pre-Cog vision: In 36 hours or so, he will murder a man he has never met. Anderton insists that some mistake has been made – or, worse, some frame-up has been effected. Which, of course, is what every pre-perpetrator claims when he or she is arrested. Also like every pre-perpetrator, Anderton tries to run. The question is, where do you run in a world where, thanks to all those retinal-scan devices and other super-sophisticated surveillance systems, you can't hide?

Neatly entwining the cautionary pessimism of a sci-fi fabulist with the edgy paranoia of shadow-streaked film noir, Spielberg takes a walk on the wild side in Minority Report, and appears right at home on the futuristic mean streets. The saturated colors, the pitilessly harsh lighting and the dark, grainy images are a radical change from the mostly sunny look of A.I., Spielberg's last attempt to envision tomorrow. In comparison, the world of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner seems a much cheerier place, and the retro-future of Terry Gilliam's Brazil – which is recalled by the Rube Goldberg-type device used by the Pre-Cogs to deliver their advance warnings – appears appreciably more inviting. 

Working from a screenplay by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen – and, reportedly, incorporating ideas gleaned from a think tank of technologists, criminologists and social scientists – Spielberg depicts a world where magnetic-powered cars traverse vertical thoroughfares, SWAT cops wear rocket-packs to pursue fugitives, and every home is equipped with holographic home theaters. The beauty part of the movie is, after a while, you simply take these and other marvels for granted, and pay attention to the compelling plot.

Tom Cruise’s intense performance as Anderton is more than sufficiently arresting to overshadow even the most spectacular production values. Among the supporting players, Samantha Morton is the standout with her hauntingly ethereal portrayal of Agatha, the one Pre-Cog who's capable of seeing beyond what seems inevitable. But the movie also contains scene-stealing turns by Tim Blake Nelson as the slightly loony warden of a high-tech prison for pre-perpetrators, Peter Stomare as a surgeon with a sure cure for patients pestered by those troublesome retinal-scanners, and Lois Smith as an eccentric scientist whose secluded home is something out of a Grimm fairy tale.

Minority Report offers generous servings of food for thought along with breakneck excitement and eye-popping special effects. (You can't help wondering how the Pre-Cogs might be used in the ongoing war against terrorism.) Just as important, though, it offers so much that you likely won't fully appreciate its bounty during just one viewing. Be prepared to blown through the back of the theater. But also be prepared to go back for a second look.