Infowhore's Library - Next [Spoiler warning]

I watched Next starring Nicolas Cage, Jessica Biel and Julianne Moore. Next is about a stage magician(Cage) who can see two minutes into the future. Julianne Moore is a FBI agent who wants his help to track down a nuclear device in the hands of terrorists. Jessica Biel is Cage's love interest and damsel in distress.

In the summer of 2007 I went to see Spider-Man 3 in the theater. Next was also playing and I after I got out of Spider-Man 3 I almost went to see it. I decided instead to see Spider-Man 3 again and I am glad I did because I almost certainly would have been kicked out when I started yelling at the screen.

Basically this movie has no ending. You can argue that it's supposed to be ambiguous and make you think. I say blah and double blah. Half the movie is completely invalidated when it rewinds to an earlier point revealing everything that happened after to be little more than one possible future. That's right half the movie, the action packed full of cool things happening half, didn't happen and the movie ends with no resolution. I would have perferred that they all died in the nuclear explosion. Then we would have gotten some kind of lession about how even if we could see the future we still wouldn't be able to see everything. Kind of an Outer Limits type ending. I could have excepted that.

Toward the end when they began to bend and outright break the rules of how his power worked I began to get nervous. Then I remembered the rule of cool and decided it was fine. Watching someone who can see the future direct a small squad of armed FBI agents was awesome. I have to admit the geek in me was screaming, "He's like a JEDI!!" And when he says, "I made a mistake. It's happening now," just before the explosion, all I could think was, "Oh, shit."

Most of the movie's faults fall under the rule of cool. The ending a a huge cop out in my eyes. I was going to rate this movie a 5 out 5 however the it was just a dream ending left me with a very sour taste in my mouth. So I'm torn between giving it a 4 for the majority of the movie and a 2 for the ending.