mgruebel Like "Knowing," "Next" starts out nicely, but the ending falls a bit flat. Not as flat as "Knowing," though.Nick Cage plays Las Vegas casinos with the ultimate card-counting trick: he can see 2 minutes into the future, and when he makes a mistake, re-live that two minutes until he gets it right. He uses that trick to get the woman of his dreams, but ends up in the cross hairs of an FBI agent who wants him to help her find a nuclear device soon to go off in LA.Spoiler: one of my main problems with this movie is the corny "it was all a dream" ending. That meme has just been used once too many, and "Next" does not make particularly good use of it. Mainly, the reason for this deus ex machina plot twist seems to be that director Lee Tamahori wanted to show a gratuitous nuclear explosion in LA. Well, then at least make it really slow mo and show us some devastation. And no, explaining it away by saying that mysteriously, Cage can see farther than 2 minutes into the future where his new girlfriend is concerned, does not make it any more satisfying.Despite the weak ending, it's enough fun to watch once.

SnoopyStyle 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.

willcundallreview 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.

eyeintrees 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.