My Review of Nicholas Cage's Next Movie

I recently caught a showing of 'Next', the new sci-fi/paranormal flick from Nicholas Cage. The story is basically about Cris Johnson (Cage), a two-bit magician from Las Vegas. He has the uncanny ability to see 2 minutes into his own personal future, and is able to change the future based on what he sees. He is enlisted by Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore), a Federal agent investigating a Russian (the generic bad guys of this flick) attempt to set off a nuclear device on American soil. Enter Liz (Jessica Biel), Johnson's love interest who he's been dreaming about for some unspecified amount of time. He meets with her at a diner near the casino he works at, and together, they embark on a wild journey, leading up to the potential finding (or losing) of the nuclear device.

I thought this movie sounded interesting at first. I thought the idea of being able to see the future in the short term could be a unique concept for a movie. I expected that they'd be able to show this ability in unusual ways. At times, I was disappointed, because all they did was play the same scenes over and over again, with different results. How boring. I will admit that Johnson's ability was shown off more uniquely at points during the movie, when multiple Cage-clones walk off in different directions until they all decide which of them is netting the best results. The concept was there, but the follow-through was rather ho-hum in most cases.

Biel and Cage had little to no chemistry between them. What was supposed to be a destined love connection turned out to be a random set of emotionally disconnected scenes. I wish they'd developed the relationship between the two of them a bit more, because I couldn't understand why Liz had any vested interest in sticking around once she knew the real story. I actually got more of a connection between Moore and Cage, even though they actually shared fewer scenes together.