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Next!
RUN! DO NOT WALK… to the liquor store before seeing Next
2007
Review: April 29, 2007
Director: Lee Tamahori
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel
True enjoyment awaits.
THE SETUP:
Guy can see two minutes into the future. FBI wants him to locate a nuclear bomb.
DISCUSSION:
Woah boy, this shit sure does stink! But stink in the MOST amusing way, and my only regret is that I was not absolutely wasted off my ass. Man, this movie would have been fun then. But you still have this movie ahead of you! Sneak in some booze and RIDE THE RIDE!
Hoo doggy, where do we start? The tragedy of Nicholas Cage, once-good actor now seriously committed to all-shit, all-the-time, and who is beginning to look just a little bit fake in every aspect of his appearance, stars as Chris somebody or other who can see two minutes into the future, but only about things that affect him directly [so self-centered!]. But he can—for a reason that remains totally unexplained—see further into the future when his thoughts center on the lovely and talented Jessica Biel as Liz. He had a vision this one time of Liz walking into a certain diner at a certain time and now Nick has been going to the diner every day to try to meet her. The movie opens with him there, but she doesn’t come in.
So he goes to work, where he performs as magician Frank Cadillac, using his powers for the job but also to win money at the casino. In the first and most ludicrous action scene, we see that the casino bigs notice him winning, and they send their thugs down to get him. BUT THEN! This guy comes in who is going to rob a teller! So Chris punches him and saves them, but now the thugs are on to him, which necessitates a chase through the casino, with Chris getting away because he sees what’s coming. Then he STEALS A CAR and goes on a high-speed car chase! And you’re like; “Is this ROUTINE? Does this happen to him ALL THE TIME?” He guns the engine and passes just in front of a train [this is in the trailer], then repairs to his LUDICROUSLY FABULOUS pad where he lives with Peter Falk! Peter looks like he just got punched in one eye, but he’s still a welcome and charming presence.
Then Julianne Moore shows up as CALLIE. Julianne IS the main reason I wanted to be flat-fuckin’ wasted for this because I found almost her every utterance HILARIOUS! She’s REALLY trying to show who’s in charge around here, and virtually everything she says is barked in this contemptuous, really PISSED-OFF voice! She kept me laughing from beginning to end.
OH! I forgot to tell you that in the credits this thing is billed as being adapted from the “Novel Story” by Philip K. Dick. 'Novel story?' Do they mean that it’s a really inventive and new story? Or do they mean that it’s a story that’s kind of like a novel, and have just never heard of the word “Novella?” If it’s the latter it’s utter bullshit [but you know, what isn’t?] because the original story is like 15 pages! Hooray for Hollywood.
Around this time one of my friends from work, who didn’t really want to see this movie but at the same time didn’t want to be left out, leaned over and said “I’m ALREADY annoyed.”
Anyway so Nick sees the feds coming and hot-foots it out of there, which doesn’t prevent him from showing up at the diner the next day, when Jessica finally comes in. Blah blah blah he charms her by using his powers of presight to determine what she would respond to, then gets a ride from her to Flagstaff, where he is supposed to do something. But first he has to stop and bond with her while she teaches Native Americans at the bottom of the Grand Canyon! Then they start driving home and you’re like, “Uh, didn’t he have something to do in Flagstaff?” Not anymore, I guess. Then the road is washed out, so they go to this utterly charming Canyonside motel where Nick says he’ll sleep in the car, and distrusting Jessica, who earlier was worried that every man she meets is a psycho, happily hands over the keys to her SUV to this guy she met just that morning.
SPOILERS > > >
In the morning they wake up and Nick comes in and it’s not long before they’re making passionate love. Then Jessica goes out for some groceries and is intercepted by Julianne, who tells her Nick is a sociopath and tries to get Jessica to drug him. After a bunch of bullshit Jessica can’t do it and Nick tells her his future-seein’ secret, and they make a plan.
While all this is going on there are these Russian terrorists, led by Thomas Kretschmann of The Pianist and The Celestine Prophecy [lookin’ pretty good here, by the way]. They have stolen a nuclear warhead and are going to blow up somewhere with it. Why? Why is never explained. I guess it’s just what terrorists do. You know, terrorists—the one-word explanation for everything. Anyway, they’re trying to get Nick as well. Startling how many people easily believe that this guy can inexplicably see two minutes into the future.
So Nick takes off down the canyon and Jessica sends her car off the cliff [I know I’d be willing to destroy my high-ticket car at the drop of a hat for some guy I’ve just slept with once—sure!] which causes this avalanche of logs and water towers and cars and trucks that Nick can easily avoid because he sees where everything is coming. Then he meets Julianne on some road, and she sees the avalanche coming and says “So you’re just going to let me die?” to which I SO wanted Nick to respond: “Well, you ARE kind of a bitch.” But no, he has to do the right thing and save her, then they take him in.
They strap him into this eye-opening contraption in front of Fox News or some shit to see if he can see further than two minutes into the future, and for some mysterious reason he can! He sees Jessica on a parking garage with a bomb strapped to her, and she blows up, sending bloody Biel-limbs flying everywhere! Actually, no limbs, it’s a clean ‘splosion, although that obviously would have been so much better. I’m still unclear on why the terrorists wanted to blow her up and not just concentrate on their nuclear bomb, but whatever. I guess they hated Jessica’s freedom.
So now Julianne is going to help Nick save Jessica because in the process they think they’ll find the nuke. This leads to this long shootout that goes all over this loading dock with vans and helicopters and shit and then into this cargo ship and all up and down it. It’s kind of cool that Nick can see where all the baddies are, but after awhile this whole thing is going on so long you kind of start to wonder why. Well the fact is kids, that even though it seems like the movie has barely gotten going and that you are in the solid early-midpoint of the story, you are actually watching the film’s climax!
THE ENDING OF THE MOVIE IS REVEALED NOW! But I knew it going in and actually found the movie more enjoyable because of that—or at least it mitigated the disappointment. So they save Jessica and go upstairs and Nick suddenly says “I was wrong! It’s happening! NOW!” And then the nuke blows up and they’re all incinerated. I would like to inform anyone who thinks that they would like to see some nuclear-style devastation that EVERY SECOND of the nuclear explosion is in the trailer. What you already saw is what you get.
But then! Nick wakes up, back that morning! You see, it was ALL A PREMONITION! Then he calls Julianne and says he’ll help! THE END! The movie that barely seemed had begun—is over!
< < < SPOILERS END
It was awful—but I loved it. I mean, I love any kind of ludicrous sci-fi, and Julianne was cracking me up, and the premonition stuff is vaguely cool and there’s lots of action and so little of it makes sense that it’s kind of delightful! The only people who didn’t like it are those expecting a good movie. Or even a decent one. If you love horrid, cheesy sci-fi, I say sneak some booze in and go for it!
SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?
If you enter knowing full-well that it’s cheesy crap. Bring friends and mock, mock, mock!
