'Next' - A quandary of a movie
By: Tim - aurora - Dunn

'Next', simply put is as much a quandary to the viewer as it is for the main character in the story, Chris Johnson(Nicolas Cage). Hidden in the background of this story is a lot of generic theoretical physics which somehow pops out of the film and infected me in such a way that I both like and dislike this movie at the same time (can you say Schrodinger). This is definitely a movie where people will either really like it or really hate it and the ending only extenuates that.

 

 

'Next' centers on Chris Johnson who was born with the ability, or curse, to see the future. There's just three caveats to his ability though. Number 1 - he can only see two minutes into the future, seemingly not a second more save for one special case, more on that in a bit. 2 - He can only see the future as related to him and his events. 3 - The mere fact of seeing the future changes the future. Happily these three 'laws' if you will, seem to make plenty of sense an would make a plausible basis for how it might work if such an ability actually existed among people. Better yet the movie pretty much sustains and uses these three laws for manipulating the story and provides the excuse for the, ummmm, interesting(?) ending.

 

 

We first see Chris as a magician using his ability in a Las Vegas back room show to hide that ability in plain sight, or so Chris tells us. Your first thought is man he's in Vegas and sees the future then he must make a killing at the tables. Sure enough that scenario plays out and begins our journey through the story. After a rather important event at a casino we find Chris back at his house with Irv(Peter Falk) now as to whether Irv is Chris's father or what I'm not really sure. Regardless of that Chris soon becomes aware of a woman, Callie Ferris(Julianne Moore) coming to talk to him about the events at the casino and something much larger. Chris hangs out watching a five minute scene play out during his two minute future viewing window and thus learns why she's really after him. It seems a piece of nuclear arsenal is missing and is destined for a terrorist attack against the US. In some bizarre way not really discussed Callie becomes aware of Chris's ability and wants to use it to find and stop the terrorists. Not so strangely Chris uses this info to run instead of help. Why? well Chris wants freedom from the prodding of scientist but as Callie tells him later, 'with freedom comes responsibility'.

 

 

Next thing we see is Chris sitting at the counter drinking a martini (most likely stirred and not shaken) the same as he has had at the same time each day for several days waiting for the exception to law 1 to enter the bar. After a few of these sit and wait events sure enough in walks Liz(Jessica Biel) his 'future' love. A new thought immediately pops into your head, 'man seeing into the future would be great to know the best way to pick her up' and sure enough we see the secret to finding the perfect pickup line.

 

 

After an extremely brief brunch Chris uses his ability to hitch a ride with Liz to Flagstaff. Here we take a small detour to build Callies character up a bit which really fits poorly into the story if you take it at face value. Callie is a school teacher for children on the Havasupi Indian reservation. She makes a stop to drop off a birthday present to one of her students who is celebrating at the base of my favorite place I have ever been, Havasu Falls, truly heaven on earth as the extremely rare few people that have been there will attest. What they skip from the story is that its a 20 mile hike from the parking lot to the little village and another mile and a half from there to the falls. Now if that was part of the story you might begin to believe that she had the time and ability to fall in love with Chris. But I digress into the forth major writing error, so back to the story.

 

 

From here Callie and Chris end up at a quaint inn someplace between the Grand Canyon and Flagstaff. Here the story starts to really liven up and kick into high gear. It seems the terrorists have been watching the FBI who's watching them. While they don't know what Callie's interest in Chris is they know that he must be trouble to their plans so they decide to be safe and kill him. Meanwhile Callie as nabbed Liz and tries to get her to help capture Chris. From here all I'll say about the second half of the movie is law number 1 does not apply when Liz is involved and Chris starts off on an adventure to save her life.

 

 

The thing that, at least for me, makes this movie extremely interesting is the fact that it acknowledges several key points in the world of physics. The first is Heisenbergs Uncertainty principal in that the mere act of observing something changes that something. Chris even states that law, in his own words, a couple of times and if you see this movie please remember this point as it explains why the movie ends the way it does. The second area of physics it covers is quantum probability. There's a long scene, actually a few, where Chris explores several probable future paths. He travels down a certain path until a critical junction in events takes place at which point his ability diverges to follow the next series or probable paths in order to find the best plausible course. Interestingly though regardless of other skips in writing they don't screw up here, as bad anyways. Even though he finds the best probable path to follow the mere fact that he observed that path changed it so he obviously did not see the final path, meaning he keeps seeing events he did not see before and is able to continue to move ahead. While not perfect in execution the writers and director did manage to do a decent job even if you begin to foresee events before they happen like Chris does.

 

 

Then there's the ending and all I'll say about the ending was when it came I was irritated to no especially knowing ahead of time that this movie is only 96 minutes. Meaning they could have extended the movie another half hour without too much pain. However as I was driving home I was thinking about the movie and realized it was not a bad way to end this movie if remembered law number 3. Thanks to the way the movie plays out leading up to this movie it makes 'Next' another one of those must see it twice movies because the second time it will be completely different then the first time. While not as powerful nor as good as the 'Sixth Sense' nor the grand daddy of all must see twice movies 'No Way Out' it does make getting the DVD something to think about when that day comes.

 

 

There's not many powerful CG looking scenes so there's not much to discuss other the semi-decently CG meshed visually enhanced scenes such as events happening at the inn. The major exception to this is the nuclear explosion in L.A. We have seen so many really nice looking nuclear explosions as of late that this scene, which happens with them extremely close to ground zero is extremely poor in execution. Very few elements in the explosion scene were well done at all. The entire effect put together hides some of the lesser elements but still does not make this scene anything noteworthy. It does make it decent reference material for future nuke vfx developers. Well reference material in how not to do it anyways.

Conclusion:
As I said at the beginning, after watching this movie I both like it and hate it. The saving factor for me was the way the movie attempted to stay true to law number 3. For the average watcher they will either like it or hate it and will be very firm on their stance. The pace of the movie was pretty decent and continuous from start to finish. The movie was short at only 96 minutes so your not worn out nor in need of the sprint to the bathroom that too many movies of late have created for us with mega long movies. Nicolas Cage, and Jessica Biel played their parts as best they could considering what they were given to work with. Julianne Moore's character was weak, very weak in character development. Plus there are tons of holes in the story not the least of which surrounds the terrorist, as in who are they, and why are they doing this and in fact the whole terrorist bit is almost secondary instead of primary to the whole of the story. Plus there's a million and one questions that go unanswered at the end.

As for the title 'Next' you assume prior going into this movie that it means what will Chris's next move be thanks to his gift. However, after the movie is over the question is what will happen next with 'Next'. Will there be a sequel? I personally hope not, I doubt it would work any better then to be that years Razzberry winner for worst movie of the year. However I do see the potential for a short lived TV. series ala 24-esque. Its not something that could keep you going for more then the second week of the second season. But if done in a '24' style it might, just might have potential.

Ratings:

IMDB Film Rating: User Rating: 6.0/10 (285 votes)

- For a movie going experience I give it: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
I'm riding a middle line on this as an average. If I could vote twice I'd give it a 3 and a 2 as I both liked and disliked this movie and am still not sure how I'll fill about it tomorrow.

- For a technical piece of CG and VFX work I give it: 2.5 out of 5 stars.
Not all that much in this movie in the way of CG. There's a couple 'Matrix' like scenes that are so-so. There are a few other actions scenes that are OK. If however your going to this movie to see L.A get nuked you'll be sourly disappointed by the explosion fx.

Credits:

Cris Johnson - Nicolas Cage
Irv - Peter Falk

Callie Ferris - Julianne Moore
Liz - Jessica Biel
Mr. Smith - Thomas Kretschmann
Cavanaugh - Tory Kittles
Security Chief Roybal - José Zúñiga
Wisdom - Jim Beaver
Jeff Baines - Jason Butler Harner
Kendal - Michael Trucco

Executive Producers - Gary Goldman, Jason Koornick, Ben Waisbren
Producers - Nicolas Cage, Todd Garner, Norman Golightly, Graham King, Arne Schmidt
Associate Producer - Debra James

Original Music - Mark Isham

Cinematography - David Tattersall

Film Editing - Christian Wagner

Visual Effects:
Comen VFX
Digital Dream VFX
Digiscope
eyetronics
LOOK! Effects
Pacific Motion Control
Pacific Title and Art Studio
Pixel Magic
Tweak Films
Cinema Production Services, Inc.

MPAA:Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, and some language.
Runtime: 96 min