‘Minority Report’ a summer movie with substance

In theaters

MINORITY REPORT, directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Scott Frank and Jon Cohen. 145 minutes. Rated PG-13.

If we can somehow get through the next 52 years, homeland security will be airtight and crime as we know it will be abolished, starting in Washington, D.C., and fanning out nationally under the guidance of the federally funded Department of Pre-Crime.

All of this will come at the cost of our privacy, of course, but should that really be a concern considering the increasing risks of living in today’s brave new world?

With Big Brother able to glimpse the future with the help of three psychic prognosticators called “Pre-Cogs,” each of whom exist in a dream state and can see a crime before it happens, we’ll be safer than we are now. Safer from those plotting to murder us, safer from a world determined to undo us – safer, even, from ourselves.

It’s this scenario – and the sharply observed, provocative ramifications that bloom from it – that are at the core of Steven Spielberg’s ambitious new thriller, “Minority Report,” which is the first film since Christopher Nolan’s “Memento” to offer so much to chew on, it deserves to be seen twice.

Set in the year 2054, the film, from a script Scott Frank and Jon Cohen adapted from a short story by Philip K. Dick (“Blade Runner,” “Total Recall”), is great-looking sci-fi noir, a brooding, cerebral look at the dangerous level of faith we place on technology that’s peppered with enough depth and glitz to satisfy those seeking something more substantial at the summer box office.

In the film, Tom Cruise is Jon Anderton, a Pre-Crime cop who joined the department after the kidnapping and murder of his young son, Sean, six years before. Divorced from his wife, Lara (Kathryn Morris), and hooked on mood-lifting drugs, Jon is an emotional wreck, for sure, but he’s gifted at his job and has complete faith in the department’s ability to stop a crime cold before it even happens.

That is, of course, until the Pre-Cogs finger him.

Now certain the system is flawed, Jon is forced to hit the streets running; in 36 hours, he’ll allegedly kill a man he doesn’t know. If he is to survive over the next day and a half, he’ll need to stay one step ahead of his own department, which is now out to get him, and prove the Pre-Cogs wrong, something nearly impossible to do.

What spools from this premise is a labyrinthine plot that sometimes becomes unwieldy but which never becomes absurd. Indeed, what’s great about “Minority Report” is the ongoing sense that the roots for the future it envisions are being nurtured right now in government think tanks and corporate board rooms, fueled by a world that wants, above all, to be safe.

Borrowing from a wealth of influences-“Metropolis,” “Blade Runner,” “Tron” and “The Wizard of Oz” chief among them – Spielberg retains the chill of his last film, “A.I.,” yet firms his grip on the proceedings.

He’s still a crowd-pleaser, but unlike his friend George Lucas, who seems to have lost his way, Spielberg’s work doesn’t feel forced or emotionally stunted. Instead, it’s punched with ideas – and liberated by them.

With Colin Farrell, Max von Sydow, Samantha Morton and Lois Smith all pitch-perfect in supporting roles (if you look closely, you’ll also see director Cameron Crowe in cameo), “Minority Report” considers a world without murder and throws its bloody answers at the screen. Thanks to the great cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and a top-notch special effects team, what sticks is beautiful to look at, but when you leave the theater, don’t be surprised if you feel dirtier than when you went in.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, occasionally on E! Entertainment’s “E! News Weekend,” Tuesdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5” and Thursdays on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ-2 and WCSH-6. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.