DVD Review of Next

Nicolas Cage Action Thriller Includes Four Featurettes

Apr 16, 2008

Although the precognitive surprises in "Next" lose their surprise element after one viewing, the breathtaking special effects continue to amaze over and over again.

In the paranormal action thriller Next, Nicolas Cage plays a Las Vegas magician who hides his precognitive abilities behind a hokey magic act.

Two Minutes Into the Future

Based on Phillip K. Dick’s novel The Golden Man, the film Next takes us inside the life of Cris Johnson (Cage) as he uses his paranormal abilities to cheat at the gaming tables, just narrowly avoiding security and the police. Although his powers are limited to only seeing two minutes into the future, that’s enough time to keep him out of harm’s way. Despite his knack of rearranging the present based on his knowledge of the future, he is plagued by one mystery: He has visions of meeting a beautiful woman (Jessica Biel) at a diner that go way beyond his two-minute warning. In fact, he hangs out at the restaurant each day waiting for her arrival.

The couple’s first romantic encounter gets sidetracked, however, when Callie Farris (Julianne Moore), an aggressive FBI agent, relentlessly hounds Cris to use his talents for stopping a terrorist plot. Her desire to save millions of people from the nuclear attack is pitted against his desire to live freely without Government interference. Tortured with physiological and psychological experiments as a child, he wants no part of her plans.

Like Total Recall and The Minority Report, two of Dick’s other stories that were made into movies, Next plays with various psychological states and perceptions of time. The story produces suspense and thrills, and Cage’s performance contains broad humor, sweet moments, and subtle nuances. Even so, perhaps the most memorable scenes occur when the riveting special effects produce a derailing train and an avalanche of objects cascading down a cliff.

Next bonus features lack the usual commentary, outtakes, and deleted scenes, but do include four featurettes. “Making the Best Next Thing” describes how the cast and crew felt about the story and the characters, particularly how much they enjoy working with star Nicolas Cage. Because Cage’s range and depth of talent are so firmly established already, it’s curious that this featurette spends so much time singing his praises. “Visualizing the Next Movie” contains the most interesting behind-the-scenes information including interviews with the designers who created some of the amazing special effects for the film. The big question of whether to use model making or computer-generated images for the special effects was simple to answer: CGI costs less and delivers more of what they needed for this particular film.

Two short featurettes, “The Next ‘Grand Idea’” and “Two Minutes Into the Future With Jessica Biel” respectively reveal information about on-location shooting around the Grand Canyon and a couple minutes of rambling monologue by Biel about whether or not she would want to know the future if she had that ability. This last featurette seems rather pointless, unless viewers want one final look at the lovely leading lady.

To learn more about movies with special effects, read reviews of The Forbidden Kingdom.

The copyright of the article DVD Review of Next in Sci-Fi/Fantasy Films is owned by Leslie C. Halpern. Permission to republish DVD Review of Next in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.