***WARNING: There will be spoilers. This movie was released in 2007, so I'm going to talk freely***
I started out watching baseball, but my team was losing badly and the manager wasn't pulling the pitcher, so I went looking for something else to watch. I found a movie that looked intriguing. It was titled Next.
***FYI, this movie was available on Amazon Prime and I received no compensation of any kind for this review.***
Next stars Nicholas Cage as a low-rent Las Vegas Magician named Cris Johnson who can see two minutes into the future. If he's involved in this future. He uses this in his act, but not with any great panache and he supplements his income with some gambling. Not big scores, but a lot of medium wins.
The FBI is after a group of terrorists who have a nuclear weapon in Los Angeles. They need to find it before it's detonated, and FBI Agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) thinks Johnson can help them locate it. Only he uses his talents to evade her.
Johnson's Achilles heel is a woman he knows will walk into a diner at 8:09 and goes there morning and night until she arrives. Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel) affects Johnson's talent. With her, he can see farther into the future than two minutes. And he's going to need this skill to save her, himself, and stop a nuclear bomb.
I'm not sure how I never heard of Next before. This type of movie with time travel and adventure is the kind of thing I enjoy. And I did like this movie a lot!
There were plot holes. There were frustrations. There were story threads that were introduced and never picked up again. The ending left me screaming, noooooo! Despite all this, I'm thoroughly recommending Next. It was fun!
The romance was lame, but I expected this. The premise, though, was cool. Beyond cool. The Cris Johnson character is greatly flawed, yet I could see why he was the way he was. He was tested and retested as a three year old. Now, all he wants is to be left alone. But when the FBI becomes interested in him, the terrorists do, too. Their mysterious boss wants him dead.
The ending is probably the biggest problem with the movie. It's largely a cheat, but I could forgive this because of how it fit with the rest of the film. What had me frustrated was that it left me hanging. Wikipedia claims a sequel is (was?) in the works, but since it's been 14 years, I doubt it's coming out. I did try searching online, but "Next" is such a generic title and adding Nicholas Cage's name brought up Face Off and National Treasure news, so I gave up.
With all the caveats, I highly recommend this movie. It was a super fun way to spend an evening. Two thumbs up!
