A clairvoyant Las Vegas magician is tracked down by an FBI agent who believes his supernatural powers and wants to use them to foil an nuclear terrorist attack in LA. The weirdness and absurdity start with this brief definition of the scenario: a nuclear attack is imminent and instead of narrowing down on the threat with all of its resources, FBI spares a good deal of his task force to go after a person whose contribution to the solution is uncertain. The magician knows FBI looks for him for help to save the lives of some 8 million people, but tries to evade them for some reason which is not clear. If this doesn't sound weird enough the bad guys also go after the magician just because FBI looks for him but without really knowing why they need to. Indeed, the plot gives no clue for what the bad guys are up to, which depicts them all as cartoonish villains. Then, Jessica Beal joins in as the beautiful face of a romantic subplot which really doesn't add much to the story. J. Beal is gorgeous to watch but way too young and fresh to make us believe that she can't do better than a middle age man with a cheaply died, scruffy and thinning hair. A movie, especially one with some flavor of metaphysics and fantasy is for entertainment purposes and cannot be expected to follow the reality. However, the plot has to be coherent even in a fantasy world to sustain the attention of the audience. Nothing makes sense in this mess of a story. The action scenes are pretty typical with a cat and mouse game inside a warehouse, guns spitting fire in dust and smoke, dead people falling off rooftops and stairs, etc. Others involving a car, rocks, debris and logs tumbling down from hilltops look nothing more than a cheap, blatant computer animation even to an untrained eye. The pace is good but the flat and unconvincing acting matches well to the ludicrous plot and the ending is utterly childish and lame.

In this Lee Tamahori sci fi-thriller, the role of (anti-ish) hero Cris Johnson (aka "Frank Cadillac") allows Nicolas Cage to achieve what he often strives to - but quite often fails to - in movies, i.e. attract the sympathy and understanding of the filmgoing audience. On the face of it, things don't look too promising, given that Johnson inhabits the familiar Cage habitat of Las Vegas, where he performs a mixture of future-predicting and simple magic tricks to far less than packed houses. He's not averse to a bit of sleazy stuff (this is Vegas after all), and his life is not going anywhere much, though he does have some kind of support-system at home thanks to a character of unknown category called "Irv", who appears in a very brief scene but nevertheless makes a remarkably big mark thanks to being portrayed by Peter (Columbo) Falk, whom it proves surprisingly - if quite tangibly - pleasant to come across again, in this sparse but satisfying cameo role. In fact, this sets a kind of a trend for the film, for Cage is at his best here, just as is that not-always-compelling actress here doing very good things, Julianne Moore. She is an FBI agent interested in Johnson because her observations of him for some time convince her that he has genuine abilities to see the future deliberately played down to allow him to go on leading an anonymous life. This is indeed the case, and it is clear from the outset that, while the ability earns Johnson a modest-ish living, and allows him to avoid certain problems, it also represents a major burden in itself that he doesn't especially want, and would definitely prefer not to put at the disposal of Uncle Sam.As it turns out, Johnson (mostly) only sees 2 minutes into the future, and rather just his own future. Having suspended disbelief this far, one might well consider that such a "gift" would most likely prove entirely impossible to adjust to or compensate for, even if one could. Yet clearly Johnson has got used to it, even if it is also a tiresome weight on his shoulders.So far it's all a bit downbeat and small-time, but what adds a great deal in this story (originally from no less a writer than Philip Dick) is that Johnson has one event from the further future he's also been able to see - a meeting with the woman of his dreams which he knows the hour and place of, but not the day. Given that, when this meeting does indeed materialise, it is with an astoundingly, mesmerisingly good-looking Jessica Biel in the role of Liz Cooper (who also turns out to be a warm and kind person), we can readily sympathise with the character who believes this love might help lift him out of his burdensome existence.This romance, and the warm feelings it inspires, give a very great deal to the movie, not least also a bit of comedy, as Johnsons's "2-minute" thing allows him to go through a multitude of different first-line chat-up scenarios, which invariably fail to work with the lovely newcomer.The FBI have a real task for Johnson to perform, and at first they think (wrongly) that coercion might be as effective as cooperation. However Moore's Agent Ferris soon realises the error of this, especially when she grasps Johnson's romantic motivations for doing the right thing. Given (notwithstanding) their typical features as actors - Moore and Cage offer a surprisingly effective and appealing on-film partnership. There are several pretty major plot twists and one very major one, and a few really spectacular moments, especially at the Grand Canyon, several less well-known facets of which we also get to see and appreciate in the course of what looks like (and can be enjoyed as) a mini "road-movie" segment.There are also some nice touches when Johnson does indeed live up to Ferris's expectations and uses his gifts to save life repeatedly, while ensuring appropriate comeuppances for the bad-guys (of which there seem at times to be hordes).Somehow it all gels well enough, and all the more so given that a great deal is left unshown and unsaid. One is absolutely not used to such economy in films, especially films of this genre, and here it pays dividends. It remains surprisingly fresh throughout, and in many ways we are left with the idea that (despite the critical and grand-scale nature of the threat that Johnson is roped in by the FBI to avert), this film is also very much about the overriding need in all of us to find the right person to love - a prize for which we are naturally prepared to do a very great deal, and put up with a very great deal. In the end, one cannot fail to empathise with the joy - but also the burden and fragility and chanciness - of being given the chance to envision one's perfect mate with which to pass through life.

Now Nicolas Cage was once seen as a fine actor, even winning awards and many people wanting him to star in their films. But now although he is wanted for peoples films, it does seem that around the time he did this movie, only bad movies wanted him, or he was choosing them himself. This is an example of bad acting, and how a movie suffers because of it and coupled with bad directing and writing too, you fast come to realise that some movies just aren't that well made.It kind of made me a little sad that Paramount ploughed $70 million dollars into this movie when it quite obviously could have been used on something much more thought provoking. Now don't get me wrong this film has it's moments and the premise isn't so bad, a guy can see two minutes into the future meaning he basically can just get away from everyone who ever is after him and also run an albeit poor magic show. The story plays out like any other typical movie plot, well maybe not all of it but the set up is anyway, the ending is different I'll give it that, but also kind of annoying too.Cage isn't the only person here giving nothing to their character, Julianne Moore is poor too and when the actors so highly regarded are not good at what they do, you know this movie is hazardous. Jessica Biel joins the poor acting parade and along with Cage makes no effort to create any chemistry or feeling and that by the end you feel there is nowhere for this movie to go. Lee Tamahori is the director and it is just not good whatsoever, not only does he make the poor acting look even worse, he also just couldn't make the Sci- Fi like plot exciting.Now I'm not going to sit here and say for 96 minutes I watched a movie that nearly killed me(maybe shouldn't have used the word hazardous), but this movie isn't one that is very enjoyable. It has it's moments of stunts, thrills and car chases plus a few gun battles to spice things up, but there in lies the problem. The movie could have been mindful and really struck a cord about what time means to people, what could we do with Cage's power in which we only really see showcased within the first 30 minutes in a way that looks cool.I do want to think of some positives, after all I stuck by this and said it was a bad movie and not an awful one, oh I am nice. The score isn't half bad, shame it had to be used on this movie but Mark Isham creates a nice blend of instruments to make some scenes kind of thrilling. I also felt the camera angles were nice, it followed the action nicely and yet again maybe made them slightly better, David Tattersall making a good job out of a bad movie.Overall this is one movie I would recommend you miss, now of course you get people who enjoy this kind of stuff and fair enough, but just watch this carefully and tell me it isn't lazy work. I do hope one day I can see Nicolas Cage fine again, I want to see every actor do well and every film as well but Cage at this stage of his career seems lost, it's as if he wants to make bad movies and really working with Tamahori turned out to be a bad decision.

Ghastly. Just terrible. I bothered to watch because IMDb said it was half good, but I think I'll stop believing the review percentages on this from now on; been bitten too often and either someone is getting paid to say how good movies are or there are a lot of people with no standard above B grade.The premise for 'Next' is fantastic. However, the execution, script, cheesy, cheesy, cheesy, utterly lame as all hell actual movie is another thing.I really like Nicolas Cage, it's just a shame I can't watch anything he's in anymore because all the stuff he makes is terrible, most likely due to no fault of his, since he's got to pay his bills, right.Both female leads, from the naïve - I'll walk around all wet in a towel in front of a total strange guy I picked up and gave a lift to, but hey, he won't rape me - to the hard-nosed ugly cow with the ugly voice, give this no credence, just add to the scratching of fingernails on a chalk board.The idea of a magician who's actually psychic... wow, what they COULD have done with this idea might have been fantastic. Don't worry, it isn't.Cheesy, cheesy, cheesy ... a stolen atomic thing going to blow everyone up... should have blown up the movie and not wasted my time.If you love bad B grade nonsense pretending to be interesting and romantic then you might enjoy this big gobble of trifling tinsel fare.Rubbish.