Lee Tamahori is not the best of directors, or, if he is, he employs very lousy special effects houses and editors. His
last four films, with exception to xXx: State of the Union , have all had some potential, but all have been missing something that would take the stories to a truly legitimate and exciting level. Die Another Day , the absurd James Bond flick that pretty much begged for the grittier, more realistic Casino Royale , is a perfect example: it had the pieces, but a combination of poor storytelling and incredibly inane special effects ruined it. Along Came a Spider , the sequel to Kiss the Girls , was decent, but it too suffered from some special effects that ripped the carpet out from under the film. And now there''s Next , a Nicolas Cage-starring thriller that has a lot going for it, but still lacks something that makes us truly believe.
To start, Next is an entertaining movie. It keeps you guessing, at least in the superficial sense, and you''ll never be bored. The film is based on a story by Phillip K. Dick, and is about a man (Cage) who can see two minutes into his own future, a long enough time to allow him to escape from cops repeatedly and perhaps prevent an even larger crisis. Though he has lived with this gift his entire life, he is intrigued by a woman (Jessica Biel) whom he can see days into the future, even though he has never been able to do that in the past. But with both the feds (led by Julianne Moore) and terrorists hot on his trail, will he ever get to be with her?
Essentially, the movie is a non-stop thriller, as Cage goes from one dangerous situation to the next. It isn''t non-stop action, however, and there are a few parts where nothing happens for a while. Luckily, it pays off as Biel is, in most of these scenes, wearing not much more than a towel. Next does take full advantage of the main character''s powers, and the seeing-into-the-future bit makes several otherwise ordinary sequences quite entertaining. A scene where Cage tries to decide how to introduce himself to Biel for the first time is quite fun, as the film goes through several iterations of him getting shot down before he finally comes up with a successful solution.