I was actually quite surprised, recalling the extreme hatred critics held towards this film that I didn't think Next was quite the steaming turd everybody made it out to be! Sure, it wasn't a great film. Not the best Philip K Dick adaptation by any means. Certainly not the worst, either. For those of you who don't know (or have forgotten), Nicholas Cage stars as a cheap illusionist who performs in a shoddy Las Vegas show using his ability to predict the future - two minutes into the future, to be exact. And only if the events have personal relavence. After being discovered by an FBI agent (Julianne Moore) who for some reason is browsing Las Vegas shows for help with a terrorist plot, Cage is recruited by the FBI to prevent a nuclear bomb from being detonated in Las Angeles. Along the way, there are a few car chases, some action with helecoptors, Cage and Jessica Biel get it on, and lots of trees die. Oh, and the ending sucks. Serioulsy. Worst ending I've ever witnessed. Now, to be fair to the critics, I understand most of their complaints. Cage's powers are never adequately explained. Some critics were confused by the fact that he appears to be seeing the future in real time - meaning that a scene will unfold, something bad happens, and suddenly we flash back two minutes and watch Cage avoid the bad thing. Where was he for those two minutes? Was he viewing events in real time? This is never explained, though I took it to be that he instantly knew what would happen for the next two minutes, and thus could take actions to change the future. Unfortunately, the film changes the rules more than a few times, like when suddenly near the end Cage can witness everal futures at once. Since when? It felt like the script was just making things up. Also, Moore convinces Biel that Cage is insane. She convinces Biel to drug Cage, but warns her that he has to be out of the room for at least two minutes before she drugs his orange juice. What??? That makes absolutely no sense! We see several times that while Cage is witnessing the future, he can walk around and interact. Why couldn't he simply walk in on her drugging his drink? Or when he does get drugged, flash back two minutes to when he was out of the room? The whole "he has to be in the room" thing made no sense whoatsoever. It felt like the writers simply couldn't think of any way for Cage to become abducted. How hard is this to come up with? Cage was with Biel in the a cabin in the middle of the woods, surrounded by FBI. Have them gas the cabin, and an entire area larger than he could transverse on foot in two minutes. That way, there is simply no way, even when he finds out what will happen, that he'll avoid it. How hard was that??? Which brings up one of the other issues I had with the film - since Cage can avoid any and all danger (except a nuclear explosion - and even then, he finds a way around it) it's hard to care. It's like watching Superman beat up on normal thugs. We know he can't be hurt, so there is no suspense. Also, it was rather creepy to see 40-something Cage (who looked 50-something in this film for some reason) make out with 20-something Biel. I mean, I know this is Nicholas Cage and all - but the character was portrayed as anything but a lady's man! Regardless, I still found the film moderately entertaining.
The movie sucked, but most of it is watchable, until the ending. If it just ended where everone was happy and the terrorist lost it would have been a mindless "fun" movie. In the end it sucks hugely because of the ending. However the movie "North" has a much worse ending, actually it's pretty much the same thing.
Next is a guilty pleasure film for me. I enjoyed the diner scene where Cage is confronted by that Battlestar Galactica dude (I forget his name).
I also liked NEXT. It was a decent film. Not great but certainly not horrid. It opened the week before Spiderman 3 so it got lost in the summer shuffle real quick. Poor release date for this film. I give it a grade of B-
Yes that was the highlight of the movie for me, too. Anders! What got me is at the end where Cage's ability started letting him see further into the future than two minutes. At least that's how I recall it happening. I know there was some cheat that pissed me off about the whole movie.