HD DVD Review: Next

By Frankie Dees Sep 25, 2007, 15:23 GMT

Based on "The Golden Man," a story by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, who also wrote Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Minority Report and Blade Runner. Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which is a gift and a curse which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government ...more

Nicolas Cage follows in Ben Affleck’s footsteps to make yet another incompetent adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story. Although not as cringe-worthy as ‘Paycheck’, the biggest crime of ‘Next’ is that it’s just plain and simply unexciting and dull for all the whiz-bang effects.

With a one-two execrable punch, Nicolas Cage managed to churn out two incompetent films in one season with ‘Ghost Rider’ and ‘Next’ being released within three months of each other last spring. While ‘Ghost Rider’, the worse of the two was commercially successful, ‘Next’ all but disappeared from theaters in a matter of one week late last April where it was trampled by Spider-man 3 in it’s second week.

Directed by Lee Tamahori, who showed a lot of promise early in his career with the outstanding Maori drama ‘Once were Warriors’ and his underrated Hollywood follow-up ‘The Edge’, Tamahori has now fallen into a bland action trap with films like ‘Die Another Day’, ‘XXX: State of the Union’ and now ‘Next’ - all films which have no real personality or momentum.

‘Next’, clocking in at a mercifully brief hour and a half just doesn’t have much to say. It moves quickly but with little to no development. That the film is based on a short story is obvious at every turn. Attracted to the concept of a protagonist that can see two minutes into his own future, the filmmakers did little to take advantage of the admittedly intriguing concept.

Cage stars as Cris Johnson, a man gifted with an unexplained precog ability to be able to see into his own future within two minutes. Hiding his talents under the guise of an off the strip Vegas magician, his ability could gain him unlimited wealth but he only uses it to get just enough money to keep him going and not attract attention.

Most on his mind at the moment is a vision of a gorgeous girl in a local diner. The only vision that hasn’t been constricted by the two minute timeframe, he knows this girl will appear in the diner at eight o’clock, morning or night he doesn’t know which leads him to show up at this diner morning and night until she shows up.

When Liz (Jessica Biel) finally does show up, a humorous ‘Groundhog Day’-inspired sequence plays out where Cris plays out all his options until he finds the right combo that gains her acceptance.

Meanwhile, the world is in trouble - well, okay, just L.A., but doesn’t the world revolve around L.A.? – due to Russian terrorists (Russian?, how refreshing these days…) and their plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in L.A.

Julianne Moore’s FBI agent, channeling Clarice Starling from ‘Hannibal’, has caught wind of Cris Johnson’s talents and attempt to recruit him for matters of national security. Cris, selfish with his talents and still smarting from past “dealings” with the government as a child (read: torture), escapes and runs off with Liz to a quaint getaway off the Grand Canyon.

Cris changes his tune, however, when Liz gets kidnapped by said terrorists where he promptly heads to L.A. for the rescue, a selfishness quickly turning over to humanity or maybe, and more likely, it’s just to bang Liz again. The few action sequences in the pic, mostly consisting of a lot of ridiculously over the top close one escapes from the FBI where Chris uses his gift to come up with overly elaborate and illogical plans, use a lot of poor CGI and ill-conceived choreography.

A catatonic performance from Cage proves to be of little interest and Biel has absolutely nothing to do in the pic and wasn’t cast right in the first place. I mean Nicolas Cage and Jessica Biel as a couple? Even disregarding age, it’s clear these two just don’t go together…and Moore sleepwalks through the role as well. A tough-minded FBI agent who barks out orders to her male inferiors? Yawn.

I wouldn’t go so far as to call the film bad, but it’s just so uninteresting from every angle, that I can’t help but think of this film as anything but a waste of time. There are a few B-movie moments of the plot that divert (like the aforementioned ‘Groundhog Day’ish scene), and the big wowzers twist at the end that might convince people they were just entertained but it’s a mostly pedestrian effort.

A possible saving grace for some people would be the impeccable HD transfer. The film was shot on a HD camera, so the AVC codec encode is particularly pleasant and I imagine remains completely faithful to the digital master. That being said, the film is not particularly attractive with a mostly saturated red and orange look throughout so there’s no one defining image that would make this reference material. A lossless TrueHD audio track is also included - somewhat perplexing considering the upcoming Paramount HD-DVD release of ‘The Transformers’ doesn’t have a lossless audio track.

Standard for Paramount and always a nice addition is all the special features being presented in HD. A ho-hum group of featurettes that include ‘Making the Best Next Thing’, ‘The Next “Grand Idea”, ‘Two Minutes in the Future with Jessica Biel’ and ‘Visualizing the Next Movie’ include all the standard cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage. Like the film, everyone seems kind of bored. Did everyone lose a bet to make this film? The film’s theatrical trailer rounds out the extras.

Only the most faithful of Nic Cage, Biel or Philip K. Dick fans should check this one out or if you’re in need of a good nap. The action, ideas, acting and direction are all less than thrilling. Hopefully when I look two minutes into the future, I’ll find a better movie playing.

Next HD DVD is now available at Amazon and AmazonUK. Visit the DVD database for more information.