What’s this all about?
In Next, we see an adventure featuring a small-time Vegas magician who actually has the magical ability to see about two minutes into the future. He uses this skill to augment his stage show, and to supplement his income in interesting ways. Subplots involving a woman that he sees in a vision, and a nuclear bomb plot take the character out of his established routine as he struggles to save the woman that he’s convinced that he’s fated to be with, and, by extension, the entire population of Los Angeles.
Who is Nick in this one?
Nick plays “Cris Johnson,” stage name “Frank Cadillac,” the slightly psychic magician. He’s honed his limited psychic abilities to give himself perplexing abilities, like the ability to win at Vegas gaming tables, the ability to evade capture by law enforcement, and the ability to predict convenient jewelry failure.
This isn’t a great film, and Nick’s performance isn’t Oscar-worthy, but it’s good. He delivers a solid performance throughout.
Who else is in this one?
Julianne Moore (Children of Men) is FBI agent “Callie Ferris.” She’s intense and action hungry and doesn’t care about your rights. It’s an absurdly thin character played with unwarranted intensity.
Jessica Biel (Total Recall) is “Liz Cooper,” a traveling teacher, and Nick’s fated soul mate. She was 25 when this movie was made. Nick was 43. Watching him pursue her is gross. That’s not Biel’s fault, but I don’t know how anyone involved in the production didn’t cringe so hard that they required hospitalization every time the two were on camera together. Biel’s performance was fine. She’s pretty dull, but she got the job done.
Peter Falk (Columbo himself) plays “Irv,” an old guy who lives in a garage and is friends with Nick. He’s in one scene that only serves to give the viewer back story on Nick’s visions of Jessica Biel. Who Irv is, or what he’s doing are never addressed. It’s almost like Peter Falk just walked onto the set and asked, “hey, can I be in this movie?” and no one had the heart to tell him “no,” To be fair, I wouldn’t have been able to turn him away, either.
Jim Beaver (Justified) plays “NSA Director Wisdom.” He says stuff like “What is my agency, the FBI, doing about this?” just in case any of the agents in the room forgot who they worked for. Honestly, he’s terrible in this, but he’s an underappreciated character actor that I always love to see.
Did you see that?
This movie features a scene in which Julianne Moore shows her intensity by shooting in a law enforcement shooting range. She’s engaged in some sort of drill in which she punches a dummy before shooting it. She repeats this over and over.
I’m not going to go into the fact that FBI training drills are well documented and well known (because a lot of other agencies use them as the standard), and whatever she’s doing isn’t one of them. It looks kind of neat, so I guess that’s why it’s included.
Anyway, if you’ve been reading this series of reviews, you’ve probably noticed that I’m a firearms enthusiast, as well as a gun safety nut. I teach firearms safety to beginners for fun. I take firearm safety seriously.
In this one scene, I counted six range safety violations, any of which would get her kicked off of any range that I was monitoring. Mainly, her “punch and shoot” drill requires her to step beyond the firing line to punch the dummy. She does this while other shooters are actively shooting. They put a big red line on the floor of those ranges for a reason. The reason is to keep you from getting shot. Don’t cross that line to punch things. If, for some reason, you thought this would be a good training drill, it should only be done on a closed range.
Since none of the other alleys in the range have a punching dummy, I have to assume that she brought her own.
More egregiously, though, she fires multiple shots, in an indoor range, after a cease fire has been called and everyone has removed their hearing protection. As this is a Hollywood movie, everyone just goes on about their day.
In reality, several of the people in the room would likely be temporarily deafened. Guns are loud. You should never shoot one without hearing protection unless firing the gun will save you from a fate worse than severe tinnitus. Once, Sarah and I had an indoor range to ourselves. She was shooting in one bay, while I worked on zeroing a sight in another. Because I’m an idiot, I stuck one of my fingers under my ear muff to scratch an itch just as Sarah fired a single .22lr round. I felt it for a day.
Do better, Hollywood. Stop showing “professionals” doing unsafe things with guns for no reason. -Michael
This movie was full of sleight of hand tricks. I suppose Nick’s character needed to develop an act to cover up that he really can see the future. My favorite was instantly turning a Kleenex flower to a real rose. It was quite romantic and totally would have worked on me in my younger years. Also the scene where he was fighting the ex boyfriend and made a bunch of nickels come flying out of his nose was amusing. My point being, that he wasn’t mediocre at these tricks. Obviously, they used Hollywood movie tricks. But, if his character was this good at those tricks and could really see the future, he would have a better magic career. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
As mentioned before, Nick’s performance was OK throughout the film. His best scene, though, was when he performed his stage act early in the movie. He sort of phoned it in, with just enough forced enthusiasm to keep it moving. I’ve seen a few low-end shows in Vegas, and this felt perfect. -Michael
When Nick was going after the girl with the troops you see him sense or feel being blown up. He does an amazing job at this, just with his facial expressions. I really liked it and believed it. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
There’s a drawn out scene that leads to Nick kissing Jessica Biel for the first time. It felt like something an incel would write. A bad magician in his mid-40’s uses parlor tricks to amaze and seduce a beauty in her mid-20’s which leads to a gross open mouth kiss. It was all just a little too much for me. Nick felt like a predator. -Michael
At the beginning of the movie we see Nick’s magic act. It was super cheesy, not believable that he was getting paid for it. Obviously, this was the point, but didn’t fit with the talents we saw in the rest of the movie. -Sarah
How was the movie?
This wasn’t a great movie, but it was a fun watch. The premise is really interesting.What if at least some magicians really had very minor magical powers? If you had a very limited ability to see the future, how could you use it to your advantage? What would happen if the government, or terrorists, became aware of your abilities? The movie addresses all of these questions in interesting ways, and comes up with a pair of subplots to keep things moving.
My biggest problem with the movie is Jessica Biel. It’s not her performance, it’s her presence. Follow me here. In 2007, Jessica Biel was considered a very hot young actress. I always thought she looked like a cardboard box with bad hair, but other people thought she was super, super hot. She delivers a very muted performance in this, probably as directed. Her character is really just a MacGuffin to give Nick something to chase/’rescue. The contrast with Nick’s acting style is like a shot of vinegar in a banana cream pie.
It just doesn’t work, and pairing Cage with a woman so much younger than himself just feels gross. I kept thinking that he’d learn she was his long lost daughter, right up until he had sex with her. Julianne Moore was already in this movie, and is, in case you didn’t notice, an attractive, capable actress in Nick’s age range. Why wasn’t she the love interest? Surely Jim Beavers could have been the hard-ass FBI agent on Nick’s tail, right?
Biel adds nothing to the story. This isn’t her fault, I’m sure. It’s just the fact that Hollywood, especially 2007 Hollywood, had to shoehorn a “hot chick” in every single movie.
Otherwise, the movie is a little dumb, but entertaining. Never let it be said that I don’t like dumb movies. It made $76 million dollars on a budget of $77 million, so it was a bomb by box office standards. -Michael
I enjoyed the movie. It wasn’t the best movie I’ve ever seen, nowhere close in fact, but it was a good evening. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
It was OK. If somebody told me that they loved it, I wouldn’t think that they were having a stroke or anything. -Michael
I did. I liked it. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
You can rent it on Amazon Prime.
Leave a Reply