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If "A.I." bored or disturbed you, you'll be well off skipping Steven Spielberg's latest misfire, "Minority Report." Coming out of the movie, I couldn't help but think of how the bland colors of the film were so appropriate to the insipid characters and dialogue. Don't bother seeing this film for the acting, drama, or direction.

Welcome to the year 2054, in our nation's capitol, Washington, D.C. It is a time when fleets of robotic cars climb tall buildings, when genetically engineered plants make surreptitious home-defenses and when a six-year experiment in deterring murder with the aid of helpless pre-cognitive psychics has come to its climax.

Tom Cruise plays John Anderton, a lead-figure in the Pre-Crime unit in charge of arresting murderers before they can commit the act. Predictably, he finds himself the next target of his own unit and is faced with the perilous choice of attempting to change his fate -- which may be impossible -- or to surrender to his fate and murder a stranger. Meanwhile, he has to flee from his former associates, who are obligated to inter him in what amounts to a futuristic mausoleum.

"Minority Report" is an exercise in that perilous literary trap, deus ex machina, where fate or the hand of god steps in to fill in the holes in the plot and keep the story moving in the right direction. You may recall a similar device in Spielberg's last travesty, "A.I.," wherein aliens intervene at the last moment to bring off a happy ending from what was otherwise a predestined tragedy. Deus ex machina is sometimes called the "fortunate save" of Greek plays where Zeus or another god would step onto the stage and rescue a poorly-written play from the disasterous direction it would otherwise inexorably fall into.

There are several "deus ex" traps in this movie, and the frequent leaps of faith detract a great deal from the otherwise smooth motion of the plot. There are many minute flaws, like when Cruise's character, addicted to narcotics, performs heroic physical feats. Then there are huge cracks, such as when the cops find illegal technology in Cruise's desk (that they somehow overlooked before) that has the designer's business card taped to it. It is an age of easy transplantation, yet those "secure" facilities that are essential to the plot rely on a single simple biometric security system that only the lead characters can bypass.

Somewhere around the middle of the film, the direction changes from a man trying to flee his fate to a man trying to take control of it. Just to underscore this point, the writers add a Greek chorus, in the form of Agatha the Pre-Cog (Samantha Morton) who repeatedly tells Cruise's character that he can change his fate, just by choosing differently. As a literary device, it is a despicable act and in this movie it does no less than destroy any pretense of suspense.

Product-placement is rampant throughout the film, utilized in a hollow plot-device. Max Von Sydow is in a particularly undemanding almost-parody of his stereotypical role. Witwer, a Justice Department agent played by Colin Farrell and perhaps intended to add some drama to the chase, is quickly shown to have no real purpose at all.

The only good thing about this movie is the scenery, thanks to the production designer, Alex McDowell. It's not enough. Where other directors have brought new visions to the screen from Philip K. Dick stories ("Blade Runner"), and made passable action movies from them ("Total Recall"), Spielberg's work simply detracts from the short story from which it was derived.

"Minority Report" attempts to underscore how important the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard is to our republic, and how easy it is to mistakenly discount the rights of individuals when you can tout the safety of the majority, but it's horribly muddled up with unanswered questions about free will. Accept the lesson. Ask your own questions. Save your money.

Rating: 1.5 Happy Macs out of 5

Starring Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max Von Sydow, Jessica Capshaw
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Scott Frank and Jon Cohen, from a short story by Philip K. Dick
Studio: 20th Century Fox