Photo courtesy Twentieth Century Fox and Dreamworks Pictures Steven Spielberg tries to keep us on the edge of our seats once again in the new movie "Minority Report." Tom Cruise stars in the new thriller in theatres now.

Grade:

B

What do summer movie-goers want from their summer blockbusters?

Futuristic special effects? Check. Mega star and directing team? Check. Plot just complicated enough to keep the audience guessing, but simple enough to keep you entertained? Check. Bumbled set of eyeballs rolling down a hallway like determined marbles? Check.

Thus we enter Steven Spielbergâs ăMinority Reportä, a ăTotal Recallä like blockbuster that will be here at least until the end of the summer.

The film is set in the year 2054 with Tom Cruise playing the chief of police in Washington, DC.

Things will change in the next 52 years apparently, because in 2054 the police can detect a murder before it happens, thus proving the murderer guilty before the crime is even committed.

How are the police able to do this? Good question. See, first you need three psychic albinos that resemble extras from ăTrainspottingä called ăPre-cogsä who can see murders before they happen.

Then you have to submerge half of their bodies in a swimming pool, pump them full of hard narcotics, and then have them face the ceiling, which will reflect their collective thoughts. Finally, when they collectively witness a killing, record the murder as evidence. Groovy. Why didnât we get Keith Richards, David Crosby and Gary Busy to try this kind of experiment years ago? Maybe weâd have Bin Laden by now.

The system is seemingly flawless until Cruise does a routine case and is revealed by the Pre-cogs as the perpetrator of a murder he has yet to commit.

What to do?

See Tom run.

Run Tom run.

What is good about the movie is that it keeps moving, the pacing is quick and it never drags.

Spielberg keeps it so there is a plot twist, action, another twist, action, etc.

Also it looks really great. Spielberg takes most of his ideas in ăA.I.ä for how the future is supposed to look, right down to the tape dispenser-looking cars, and uses them in this flick to a great advantage.

The only real grievance with this movie is Spielbergâs refusal to end the movie when it wants to be over. He pioneered this idea with ăA.I.ä and its 15 different consecutive endings. He just doesnât want to end this movie on a note that is universal with the audience.

There is one decisive point in the movie at which it all seems finished. All Spielberg had to do was tie up some loose ends and he would have had a nice, tight peak of the roller coaster type of high note to end on. At that moment, people in the audience were saying to each other, ăThis was a great movie.ä However, he didnât end it there and he moved on to a more complicated superfluous tag-on ending that didnât need to be there.

Later, during the more elaborate ending, a member of the audience said, ăIs this ever going to end?ä That should not happen with a Spielberg flick. If he was trying to do too much because he saw his age as a filmmaker ripening, he is doing exactly the wrong thing. Leave the audience wanting more, Steve, but donât give it to them.