Next (2007)

Originally Reviewed
  Tuesday April 22, 2008

I was under the impression Nicolas Cage was going to take a break from acting for a while, I guess that was not meant literally but figuratively, because while he's still performing he's no longer acting or at least not trying to hard. I have never thought of Cage as a great actor, but it's definitely clear his standards in choosing roles have highly declined over the years.  I guess the answer is why make one good movie a year when you can make four crappy ones and quadruple your money! I've not yet seen The Wicker Man or Ghost Rider, so I don't have much to compare to in terms on which is worse, but if either of them are near the quality of Next then Nicolas Cage should be given the award for the fastest career decline in Hollywood history.

Next is a somewhat confusing film, and that's mainly the fault of the horrible script. Cage stars as Cris Johnson, a Las Vegas magician who was born with the ability to see a few minutes into the future. Somehow the FBI finds out about him and attempts to recruit him to help them track down a group of Russian terrorists who plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Johnson doesn't want anything to do with them, that is until his new girlfriend (Jessica Biel) is kidnapped by the Russians. Biel's character seems to hold a special key to the progression of Johnson's psychic abilities, for some reason he can see farther into the future if it involves her.

Next had the mild potential to be an average thriller, but it's not simply Cage's bad hairdo that bog down this film. The horrible script carries over to the acting which is even worse. Amazingly Cage's performance isn't as bad as you would expect, instead Jessica Biel and Julianne Moore more than make up a large majority of the terrible acting. I'm not a big fan of Moore, she always seems to play the annoying tomboy roles, and in Next she's definitely annoying and really lays the overacting on thick. Her performance was by far the worst of the film, which would have been improved without her. Biel is once again used as viewer bait; I think the studios thought she might help fill seats. Her performance is almost cornier than that in I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, and there is absolutely no chemistry between Cage and Biel which makes their relationship and the film that much more unbelievable. Overall, I can't recommend renting this, while it has enough going for it in the last half hour, the first half is filled with a lot of useless poorly written and acted dialogue which makes the film extremely stupid. It might be worth a view for a laugh at some bad film making, but you're probably better off watching something that is actually supposed to be funny. I think the final line in the film pretty much sums up how bad this movie is; 

here's the thing about the future, every time you look at it, it changes, because you looked at it, and that changes everything else...

5/10