A “dream team” pairing of Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg should give this movie all it needs to be number one it’s first week out at the box office. Too bad it needs a lot more to be one of the summer’s most memorable.

The movie is set in the year 2054. The place is Washington, D.C.. Cruise is playing a guy by the name of John Anderton. He’s the chief of the pre-crime unit. Aided by three mutants with powerful psychic abilities, Anderton’s crew arrests people before they commit murders. That’s right – before. These three pale looking mind readers lie in a pool on their backs, and hooked up to lots of computer technology, they transmit the images of the crime before it happens. They’re called “pre-cogs”. It’s up to Anderton and his guys to interpret the images fast enough in order to get to the scene and grab the guy before he does the deed.

Yes, a little hard to believe. By the way, they’re only doing this in D.C., but the plan is to take the technology nationwide. Too bad we didn’t have this last year in D.C. – did you hear that Gary Condit? Also, it only works for murders, and crimes of passion only pop up a short time before they are going to happen. So I suppose if you’re going to stab somebody to within an inch of their lives, the mutants don’t pick it up. That’s only one of a handful of logic holes in this movie.

Colin Farrell plays a Justice Department guy sent in to study the system for flaws. Anderton immediately takes a disliking to him. Before long, Farrell finds out that Anderton has his own big problems. The guy is a drug addict who fell off the deep end after his six year-old son disappeared a few years back. But Anderton soon has even bigger troubles when the mutants in the pool spit up an image of Anderton himself committing a murder. Oh, I should mention that the “system” shoots out pool balls with the names of the victims and the killers engraved on them. Silly, oh yeah, very silly.

But back to Anderton – he is soon on the run with his entire pre-crime department and Farrell after him. Has he been set-up? Or is he actually going to commit murder? Time to point out another flaw- the “pre-cogs” see Anderton’s murder over a day ahead of time, but you’ll see later that it doesn’t appear to be premeditated, so I don’t get it. I thought they couldn’t see murders of passion until just before they happen. But Anderton needs time to run, so that’s why they can see it so early on. Another “problem” is that I figured out who is behind what’s happening to Anderton almost immediately. Not the detail, but the person up to no good .

What’s also strange is that after Anderton is on the run, his retinal scan is still cleared for entry. That is, his eyeball reading is still acceptable at the headquarters of the pre-crime unit. Makes no sense.

But having said all this, the images of life in the year 2054 are still fun to watch. One thing that is clear is that the gap between the rich and the poor is really going to get wider. Anderton and his class have the cars that are programmed to deliver you to your destination and climb walls to do it. Plus they have cool computer technology that involves plenty of virtual imaging. The newspapers change as news is updated, and a cereal box sings a jingle. Also, advertisements talk to you by name as they can scan your eyes for that information.

There are some pretty gross scenes which are enjoyable too. They involve Anderton chasing his own eyeballs and weird little electronic spiders crawling around and scanning retinas for their target suspects.

Overall, though, “Minority Report” fades into it’s own lack of creditability. You root for Anderton, but you roll your eyes too. I can recommend it, but barely. I give it a “6.0”, but add a point if you are really into the mutant psychics.