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NEXT (2007) - April 25, 2007
What's the deal with Nicolas Cage? 2007 isn't even half-way over, and he's already been in two really bad movies. I'm not sure which was worse, this or Ghost Rider. About a guy who has the power to see two minutes into the future, who falls in love and gets caught up in a plot to destroy L.A. by a bunch of generic Eurotrash villains. Where do you even start with this cheesy movie? There was the dialogue, which was pretty much atrocious. The special effects were shoddy (putting it kindly). Nicolas Cage's power is completely illogical (how does he decide which moments to replay? Is it like time travel? It doesn't make sense). Much of the mid-section of the film is dedicated to Cage's romance with Jessica Biel, which is just gross (the fact that he's sporting the old pedophile hairdo doesn't help). Well, it wasn't all bad I guess. The performances were okay, with the exception of Julianne Moore (playing a tough-as-nails cop who apparently spends her free time pushing target dummies and then shooting them in the chest), who gave a surprisingly bad performance and who was clearly phoning it in. There were a couple of reasonably enjoyable sequences with Cage utilizing his power, and the film was competently directed by Lee Tamahori (though I will never understand how he went from the excellent drama Once Were Warriors to stuff like this). But, just... Blech. **