Minority Report (12)

Psychic thriller makes eye-popping viewing

What a pity Eyes Wide Shut has already been used as the title of one Tom Cruise movie, because there's another one that it would suit far better. Minority Report is all about sight, and how easily that sense can be corrupted.

The film would stand up as a great piece of cinema from any director. That it marks a rejuvenation in the career of Steven Spielberg – who has struggled for 20 years to find a form not compromised by audience expectations – is cause for particular joy.

The movie, adapted from a story by Philip K Dick, is set in Washington in 2054, where the murder rate is nudging zero. The Justice Department's Pre-Crime Unit has at its disposal the "Pre-Cogs", a trio of psychic beings who spend their lives tuning into visions of future killings. Once a murder has been foreseen, two mahogany balls pop out of a plastic intestine: on one ball is carved the name of the intended victim, on the other the prospective killer.

With only this information, Chief John Anderton (Cruise) must reach the location of the crime in time to deliver what will become one of the movie catchphrases of this century: "I am arresting you for the future murder of ..."

The opening sequence, in which Anderton races to halt a vengeful cuckold, so dexterously communicates exposition, philosophical inquiry and pulpy suspense that you don't dare to hope the rest of the film can sustain the pace. It can. As Anderton absconds after being named a killer-to-be, Spielberg delivers a series of harum-scarum set pieces – a chase along an automobile production line, a flight through the inside of a tenement slum on the back of a hijacked jet-pack – that leave you, appropriately, scarcely able to believe your eyes.

The Irish actor Colin Farrell has some crackling confrontations with the superstar into whose shoes he may step, while Samantha Morton, as the Pre-Cog kidnapped by Anderton, is frail and frightening in a role that consists largely of turning on flashlight eyes and howling like a banshee. Cruise himself is admirably game, spending portions of the movie bandaged or deformed.

We don't get off lightly either. Anderton's eye-popping visit to a backstreet optometrist, or the sight of him chasing his own runaway eyeballs, are guaranteed to make you wince, unless you had your squeamish lids clamped shut already.