Movie Chat: Next
Next
Next would make a great double bill with Deja Vu with the theme of
Time Travel Thrillers That Were Better Than I Expected (but I'm Still
Glad I Waited to See Them on DVD).
Or you could double bill it with Ghost Rider under the theme Star as
Auteur. Or should that be Starteur? Anyway, Nicolas Cage seems to be
making movies about guys who are flashy showmen onstage and withdrawn
and alienated weirdos off. They just need the love of a beautiful
woman to convince them they need to interact with the world.
I think Cage is pretty good in these roles, although maybe "good" is
the wrong word since what he's doing is a little bizarre and we might
question the validity of the entire project (i.e., working out
personal issues through big budget action star vehicles). Still - he
ends up giving these movies, well, not depth, but at least some
genuine humanity amid all the neat CGI effects and explosions.
But the best part of Next is (slight spoiler) that just when you're
worried that they're going to keep the thing going for another twenty
minutes, they wrap it up. Nothing pushes a big action movie from
Mediocre over the line into Pretty Decent like a 90 minute running
time.
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