Next (2007)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Until now, I had never seen a movie with an ending that made me get up from the couch and shout "NO, NO WAY" with the most anger a movie has given me, but here I am. The movie's plot is a winding road of nonsense, the characters are strange and the music is generic. Nicolas Cage's acting as usual is stellar but not for the reasons you'd expect, he's goofy and dumb and we all love watching him do stupid stuff. The way the cinematography incorporates his looks into the future is actually really cool, showing the camera pan slowly as he gets up and tries to talk to someone, failing, then the camera pans back to find him still sitting down thinking the situation over. They did a good job of implementing his ability. You can tell the movie doesn't take itself too seriously and just wants to have dumb fun. Probably the most entertaining Nic Cage movie I've seen. Give it a shot.

Cris Johnson (Nicolas Cage) is cheesy Vegas magician Frank Cadillac. In his spare time, he wins small amounts at the casinos. He does this by seeing into the future by about two minutes. FBI agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) is tracking him hoping to use his skills for the government especially with a stolen Russian nuke on the loose in L.A. Cris uses his power to woo stranger Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel) who has a special connection and affect on him.The idea is intriguing and the movie does it well at times. It works to some extend until it does one of the worst cheating ending ever. There are problems even before the ending. It's the little things like Nick Cage's stringy long hair. It would be great to have an opening exposition of Cris' powers during his childhood. His 36 consecutive hours story is a good one to do. Jessica Biel is hot but him sleeping with her so quickly cheapens their connection. It's got good and bad until the ending. The end is simply a cheat.

Now I want to read the book because this was a good premise, and the book has to be less stupid than the movie. I was yelling at the FBI throughout. Instead of using their resources to locate foreigners moving the heavy equipment needed to assemble the nuclear device, they think it will be easier to find one man who can see them coming. There appear to be dozens of people in this terrorist group, but somehow the plan is to find this one guy who can see 2 minutes into the future.Then, if they can get him to cooperate, their plan is to have him look 2 minutes into the future to see the detonation of the nuclear device and tell them where it happens. That is their plan. They are giving themselves 2 minutes to get to an unknown location in Los Angeles to stop a nuke. As we all know from previous movies, it takes 15 minutes to get anywhere in L.A.In a slight twist that I won't spoil here, they wind up having a bit more time, but they didn't know this when making their plan and using all their resources to find one guy.Also, the age difference between Cage and Biel is icky. Now I need to watch Valley Girl so I can like Nicholas Cage again, and I have a book to read.

I just think this would have been a much more successful movie if they had not dropped the ending. It felt like you were still half way through when the credits suddenly pop up and it was all over. I knew the time was running short near the end, but until the last moment I was certain they would have some cool trick to tie it all up. After all, how could they do otherwise without ruining a perfectly good movie. Sure we saw a possible ending but that doesn't make up for not following through for the final ending. Did he find a way to stop the bad guys? Did he get back to the girl? Who knows? This was definitely a case of trying to be arty and cool at the expense of actually telling the story and in my case I feel that it ruined the whole experience. Big credit for doing a PKD film (even if only vaguely so). Great casting with Jessica Biel. It was really an excellent first rate movie right up until the credits rolled right in the middle of the story. No it wasn't confusing, not it wasn't disjointed, there was really nothing wrong with it except that it was half of a story. I give it 7 points because it was so good up until that moment.