Next: Critic Reviews

A schlocky mix of bad special effects and worse Cage hairdos.

It's too bad that Mr. Cage couldn't tap into those powers to save himself from another bad choice in roles.

This one experiments with the putatively brain-frying idea of a man who can see two minutes into the future.

Once you know the rules, it's hardly worth playing. Especially when you find out you've been tricked.

Watchably absurd popcorn flick.

A routine action film with strange bits of surreal time-flopping mixed in.

Good summer fun that's both brain and eye candy.

This busy sci-fi thriller often seems like a page full of equations rendered meaningless by an early misplaced decimal point.

Cage is cool, quiet and a touch melancholy as Johnson -- carrying the burden of his gift with a brooding brow and a ready punch line.

Next features Nicolas Cage as a clairvoyant who can see events before they occur. If anyone on the production team had similar abilities, they could have foreseen that the film was a folly in the making.

If this all sounds like tripe, that's because it is.

The tagline says, 'If you can see the future, you can save it.' For that matter, if you don't see Next, you can save 96 minutes. What starts out as a mildly diverting thriller blows itself to smithereens in the final reel.

Next, which makes National Treasure look like a model of narrative logic, is almost beyond criticism.

Who says preposterous junk can't be fun?

Colossal waste of time.

It doesn't have the momentum, the quick-wittedness, to keep us wondering what's going to happen next.

The film fails to play by a consistent set of rules and, while it's possible to justify that endgame twist, that doesn't mean it's a good idea. Some viewers will feel cheated by what Next does, and it's hard to blame them.

Despite an outlandish premise, Next suffers from being too conventional.

The paranormal thriller Next shows how a solid crew of filmmakers and performers can apply a big-studio budget to a good story idea and still have absolutely everything come out wrong.

Next comes across like a standard clock-puncher for almost everyone involved.

Tamahori and the phalanx of writers implode Dick's intriguing premise into a pedantic thriller.

Nobody said this had to be great art, but why couldn't it be a satisfying thrill machine?

It's debatable whether Cage's supernatural ability is any more interesting than his strange coiffure.