Nexter (a.k.a. Professional Movie Review #2)

The older I get, the more I find I have in common with my sister. Sure, when we were young, we both liked the staples: pudding, puppies and Saved by the Bell. As adults, our connection has matured as befitting adults: making fun of our parents, liking the same music...and pudding and puppies. One aspect that is never the same is taste in movies. She likes horror and bad action (along with some good movies) and I don't. Mostly because horror movies make me hide under my sheets with my shotgun under my pillow and my bed wrapped in barbed wire to keep out unholy things of the night.

It was with some trepidation I agreed to watch "Next" (starring the unbelievably beautiful Jessica Biel and the equally unbelievably hideous-with-long-hair Nicolas Cage). I didn't need to hear reviews that it was a shitbomb to know instinctually that it was going to be so. But it was this or 23, which would probably give me nightmares. Mostly because I'm terrified of prime numbers.

The premise is that Nicolas Cage, a 2 bit magician, really has actual super-powers and can see what's going to happen in his life 2 minutes into the future. Except, when it comes to Jessica Biel, he can see much further into the future. So, with this awesome power he has, he bets in casinos to make extra money, but not too much, trying to fly beneath the radar, hiding in plain sight. Much like Zatanna did. His exploits lead him to be pursued by FBI agent Julianne Moore, who hopes to use his talent to discover where a nuclear bomb, slated to blow up LA (not the worst thing in the world?), is being held.*

So we go through an hour of the movie, watching "Chris Johnson" escape from people chasing him, bending to tie his shoe at the exact right moment, and generally confounding the authorities. An hour, one of the most painful in my life, goes by in this fashion, during which he also meets Jessica Biel in a diner. Oh, right. He sits in that diner every day, twice a day, drinking a martini for some time before she actually shows up because he has no idea when she's actually going to come. This is creepy. But apparently, not to her, not for long, because when asked to turn him in to the FBI, she hesitates and tells him about it, saving him from being drugged and being all in love with him.

I want to deal with one of the largest issues of the entire movie. It's not the awful acting, or the stupid plot line, or even the fact that there's no action until the last 20 minutes, and even then it's not good. It's Jessica hooking up with Nicolas being more unbelievable than Seth Rogen getting Katherine Heigl in "Knocked Up" (which, by the way, was way too long). I mean, at least Seth is funny, and him and Katherine are around the same age. Definitely the same species. Nicolas and Jessica is at best Beauty and the Beast, and at worst, possibly interspecies romance. I hope he was growing his hair out to make Con Air 2, and not just to prove to people he'll look stupid just cause he can. This is the classic scenario of hideous older man gets beautiful younger woman, usually played out by David Caruso and anybody else.

During Jessica teaching Native American children in the Grand Canyon, one of the kids observes that good ol' Nic likes her, because he's looking at her like her brother looks at his girlfriend. Pan to shot of Senor Cage staring creepily at Jessica. I wouldn't call the look love...it looks more like he's just tasted his Fixodent for the first time and didn't really like it so much. This probably also goes back to the whole bad acting point I kind of glazed over. Don't get me wrong, Nicolas Cage was totally badass in Con Air and Face/Off, and did his part at being a total loser in the lovable hit The Rock, but he has 2 expressions...normal/intense for no reason, and normal/slightly less intense with smile.

Anyway, Jessica gets kidnapped, Nicolas goes with the FBI, they find the terrorists, and kill them all and save Jessica and then, right before the nuclear bomb goes off, Nicolas Cage exclaims he was wrong about something. Not fully explained. Speaking of, I just realized, when did they ever make it into LA? Anyway, the whole thing turns out to be him looking into the future from when he's lying in bed after failing to satisfy Jessica and she's softly weeping to herself that she actually made this movie. I kind of sensed something was up when she said something, and his eyes opened wide, and then the movie kept going, until you find out that everything that happened in the 1/2 hour didn't actually happen in real life, and he's back at that moment and can decide to change the future. Then, in an infinite wisdom moment, the director or writer decided to end the movie with Cage going off with Moore, not actually giving us a real ending. The whole thing left me wishing that I had his ability, and that hour and a half hadn't actually happened and I was still standing with the disc in front of the DVD player, wondering if I should put it in or just punch myself in the brain for a while.**


*Read more about the plot summary

**Much like you're probably doing now after reading this.