When you get old, and you look back on your life, you're going to look in
the mirror. And ask yourself, did I do the right thing? Did I add to humankind? And you'll laugh from inside your mansion and your multi-million bank account and think "Fuck It, I'm Rich, and I was in Wild At Heart and Rumble Fish..."

Is "Next" a stinker? Is it yet another crappy adaptation of a Philip K Dick story that turns his diamonds into high-concept dogshit? Is it, in short, another "Paycheck"?

No, thankfully. Somehow, the incompetent Lee Tamahori manages not to make this film the biggest cinematic abortion since "xXx 2 : Too Crap For Vin Diesel". Whilst the film bares only the slimmest resemblance to the PKD story it's based upon - a tradition of cinematic adaptations - thankfully what they have done is made a film that doesn't suck like a Hoover set to eXXXtreme.

The central premise is that Nicholas Cage plays a magician who can see two minutes into the future and is eeking out a small life in a backstreet Vegas hotel sideshow. Unbeknownst to him, the FBI seem to think he can solve the problem of a missing nuclear weapon. And the bad guys - curiously, French speaking Russian blonde-ubermen devoid of personality - want him too. That's the razor thin McGuffin of a plot (apart from a girl, of course, there's always a girl involved) which is used only as a way of propelling action and mood.

In the meantime, Frank Cadillac wanders through life with a bizarre second sight that is truly impressive to see. It's well-played, never overdone, and handled in a way that seems curiously realistic. The central conceit is well handled and with the many alternate futures there are, nothing is what it  seems. The first few times this happens it's interesting, but after a while it becomes overdone, and you expect it to happen.

"Next" is by no means a bad movie : at times it seems as if it may possibly turn into the kind of usual clichéd shit action movie that jettisons any brains in favour of BOOM! BANG! CGI! FOR! DUMB! TEENS!, but thankfully it takes the lesser path and thinks instead of pulling a gun and running around like a headless CGI chicken.

Whilst Nicholas Cage can only play one character - a tense and nervy version of himself, and Julianne Moore looks as gorgeous as ever, the rest of the film, and the characters within it are barely sketched ciphers. It hard to  care about 8 million people getting blown up by Faceless Commie Nazi's when the bad guys have the presence of ants and the supporting cast are  marginalized to glorified cameos. But "Next" is by no means a bad film.

Despite it's generic and bland advertising, despite the flaws of temptation to blow shit up and the occasionally thin plot McGuffin, "Next" is a adaptation that manages to avoid the obvious. File under better than your average, shitty summer action movie.

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