Review of Next (2007) by Rebecca H — 09 Aug 2009

I dreaded this apparent turkey, but actually, it isn't bad. It isn't good, you understand, but for dumb action fare, it is absolutely watchable. This is mainly due to the gimmick actually being really interesting. Who knew?

Cris (Nicolas Cage) is a Las Vegas magician who can see two minutes into his own future. The only time he has been able to see further than this, is a vision he keeps having about a woman in a diner. Unfortunately for him, some terrorists are planning to set off a nuclear bomb. The terrorists are very bland villains who occasionally are on screen for no reason - what do we care? - they also, Riddler style, lead Cris to them because - why? Why the hell do they want to do that? What a stupid idea - if they just left him alone they'd be safe. The FBI want to use Cris's ability to stop the terrorists. This is a bit baffling - on a deadly time limit to find and stop the bomb, for some reason the FBI randomly decide to believe in magic and endlessly pursue some guy who probably can't help them. How do they even know about him? Seriously, isn't it their job to stop terrorists? Why are they so hopelessly useless without Cris all of a sudden? Besides, he can't help them because his power is only good for two minutes of his personal life, because they will perform nasty tests on him (the FBI are evil for some reason), and because all he wants to do is track down his mystery woman.

The CGI is quite terrible, the characters are utterly flat, and this is very much a piece of action fluff with a silly twist. But Cris's power is a lot more interesting than it sounds and the film makes lots and lots of use out of it, so that it is all a bit Groundhog Day and retains its ability to fascinate rather than get tired and repetitive. All the effort has clearly gone here, but I don't care, because it is really cool.