Monday, June 20, 2011

Next

I saw this Nicholas Cage movie on the weekend and I was incredibly surprised!  This did not do very well at the box office (in fact it lost money) but I really don't think it was marketed very well.  The story by Gary Goldman (Big Trouble In Little China) is quite good.  Nic Cage is a two bit Las Vegas magician who has a very real power that he was born with: he can see two minutes into the future.  Therefore he knows what people are going to say and do before they do it.  However, once it has been viewed, the future can change.  To keep out of the view of the authorities who might want to take advantage of his power, he keeps to a low profile and doesn't take advantage of his power.  A good example of this is he only wins small amounts at the casinos.  Unfortunately, he does come to the attention of the FBI, namely Julianne Moore, who needs him to help them locate where a nuclear bomb will go off so they can stop it, but he doesn't want to help in case he gets poked and prodded.  Into the mix is Jessica Biel, a mysterious woman he keeps seeing but she never materialises.  Is he now seeing longer than 2 minutes ahead?  Suffice to say, they end up together and while the bombers are trying to kill him so he doesn't help the FBI, they take her hostage to bring him out into the open.  I liked the way they show him looking at all the different possible outcomes so he can choose the right actions.  Very clever.
Lee Tamahori (Die Another Day) actually does a fantastic job of directing this all the way until the very end of the film.  ##SPOILER ALERT!!## I thought the film would keep going at the end as Nic goes off with Julianne (very clever way of getting them to this point - no I am not giving the big spoiler away!) but it just ends!!  What the Hell?!  They could have at least made the end more conducive to going to a sequel, then we might have been guaranteed one.  But the story hasn't finished.  Does he get the bad guys?  (I suppose he does as he knows where they are.)
I really liked this movie but felt robbed with the ending.  I hope they make a sequel so there is more to this story.  But what was with having Peter Falk in this film?  He literally has a walk on/walk off part - a bit like a Bob Hope cameo!  I am going to give this movie a 7/10.  It would have got an 8 but for the ending.  I recommend giving this a go.

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