ShareThisBy BARBARA VANCHERI
Friday, April 27, 2007
What's scarier? The prospect that a terrorist group plans to detonate a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles and incinerate 8 million people, or that the FBI is counting on a low-rent Vegas magician _ who can see two minutes into the future _ to stop it?
And, for good measure, what about making 25-year-old Jessica Biel the love interest of 43-year-old Nicolas Cage?
Two minutes. Even the folks on "Heroes" couldn't save the cheerleader and the world if they could see only that far ahead. And in "The Sum of All Fears," the fate of the world at least rested in the hands of a young CIA analyst named Jack Ryan, played by Ben Affleck, not a magician and mentalist.
Still, that is the premise of "Next," which will have you wishing you could see 90 minutes into the future. That way you wouldn't have bought the not-so-fresh popcorn or wasted 90 minutes on a thriller that suffers from bad dialogue, holes in an already far-fetched story and the cheesiest, easiest escape since the first magician dropped through the first trap door on-stage.
"Next" stars Cage as the two-bit performer who entertains paltry crowds by pulling tourists from the audience and predicting, correctly, events such as the clasp on a woman's necklace giving way. His character, Cris Johnson, is not an equal-opportunity psychic; he can see only his future, with the two-minute cap.
However, he also knows it's his destiny to meet a woman in a Vegas diner at a certain hour, and when Liz Cooper (Biel) finally walks in, his precognitive powers let him do dress rehearsals with opening lines. He eventually allows her old boyfriend to slug him and win her immediate affection.
Within minutes of meeting her, he claims his car has been stolen and he's supposed to be in Flagstaff. She offers him a ride but lamely asks, "You're not a psycho, right? Because the first psycho vibe I get, you're out of the car." Way to screen strangers, Liz.
The feds are already on Cris' trail because an FBI counterterrorism agent named Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) thinks he can prevent terrorists from detonating a bomb that will wipe out part of California. The terrorists, who get nothing more than foreign accents, are also after the magician, putting the lives of Cris, Liz and millions of Californians in jeopardy.
Director Lee Tamahori, whose credits range from the dazzling New Zealand drama "Once Were Warriors" to the James Bond adventure "Die Another Day," does what he can with a story shot through of holes. He employs some nifty photographic tricks and beautiful backdrops, including an Indian reservation at the bottom of the Grand Canyon.
But the movie never explains who the terrorists are or why they want to blow up Los Angeles or if they plan to escape the blast, not to mention why Peter Falk appears at the start as a pool-playing pal named Irv and then is never heard from again.
"Next," inspired by a short story by the late Philip K. Dick, whose sci-fi work is regularly mined for the movies, has been shaved to a lean 91 minutes, and it would appear some plot points were jettisoned along the way.
Cage, who won an Oscar for "Leaving Las Vegas" and turned in a strong performance in last summer's "World Trade Center," needs to shuck the bad hair and bad movie roles once and for all. Moore has already played one of the most iconic FBI agents in history with her assumption of the Clarice Starling role in "Hannibal," while Biel is simply the hook for younger moviegoers.
None of this would matter if the story were wrapped up in heart-pounding, fair fashion instead of a cheat that had some preview audience members applauding and others groaning. I was in the latter camp.
(Pittsburgh Post-Gazette movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri@post-gazette.com.)
