The Film
When will Hollywood cease its attempts to adapt the impossibly elusive themes of Philip K. Dick's stories to film? Loosely based on Dick's short story, "The Golden Man," Next casts Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage as Cris Johnson, a man who can see two minutes into the future, but only of his own life -- and only when he is personally involved in the events. There is a twist, however; that would be Liz Cooper (Jessica Biel). For reasons that are never revealed, Cris can see into the future beyond his two-minute limit when it concerns Liz, a woman he has had visions of for a long time and he arranges to meet in a diner.
The movie veers off into two separate storylines -- the love between Cris and Liz, and the fast-paced action. Cris is being chased by FBI agent Callie Ferris (Julianne Moore) who knows of his abilities. She wants to use Cris' powers of precognition to help track down a terrorist group before they detonate a nuclear bomb somewhere in California. Julianne Moore, I must say, was miscast; she was as believable in the role of a tough FBI agent as Sylvester Stallone would be playing a Rhodes Scholar.
The two storylines are never fully explored to their potential. For example, the terrorists with nuclear bombs hardly appear onscreen and we aren't even given any explanation why they want to do what they are about to do. Even the love story is brushed over. Cris and Liz meet, they drive off together and suddenly Liz is in love with this strange and creepy man she's never seen before in her life.
Admittedly, Next has its moments of great action sequences and if one suspends disbelief just long enough and takes the movie for what it is, it can have its exciting moments. It would be an easy movie to get caught up in if the pacing were not constantly interrupted by the impossible to believe love story. What completely ruins the movie, and renders it beyond salvageable, is the unexpected plot twist that strips nearly the entire film of any legitimate worth, leaving the viewer with a sense of having been duped. It has to be the most anticlimactic and ridiculous film ending I have experienced since watching the Halle Berry/Bruce Willis flop Perfect Stranger, and that should say a lot.
The Picture
Appearing on this Blu-ray Disc release in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 in a high definition 1080p/24 AVC encoding, the transfer is good at capturing a sharp, detailed, film-like look and preserving the fine level of grain, but it is not without its flaws.
The look of the film is intentionally oversaturated with blown out contrast levels and an orange tint that leads to flesh tones looking unnatural and somewhat waxy in appearance. This is not a consequence of the transfer or encoding, but the filmmakers' original intent and on that count the transfer succeeds in capturing the look with great accuracy. Certain colors in particular explode from the screen such as the azure blue of the sky, cerulean waters, copper earth tones and verdant greens of the desert plants that can be witnessed during the scene where Cris and Liz visit the Havasu ’Baaja reservation in the Grand Canyon.
Unfortunately, the high contrast level does lead to a lot of blooming and bleached looking outdoor scenes where some detail is lost. Black levels are good, with a fine amount of shadow detail. There was one instance where I noticed some jaggies, in the scene where Cris envisions his future meeting with FBI agent Callie Ferriss. Jaggies, probably caused by some sort of edge enhancement, were noticeable around both Julianne Moore's and Nicolas Cage's forehead and nose. That was the only scene where I noticed any sort of distracting artifacts caused by the transfer itself.
The fine level of detail captured on this disc did have one other drawback in that it exposed the weaknesses in the CGI effects of this particular film. The special effects did not hold up very well under the scrutiny of a high definition transfer, which is rather unfortunate.
The Sound
For this release, Paramount offers an English uncompressed PCM 5.1 (48kHz/24-bit) mix, in addition to English and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and French Dolby Digital 2.0 audio options. Listening to the PCM mix for the purposes of this review, I found the sound quality to be quite enjoyable. The film itself alternates between more action-driven sequences and dialogue-driven sequences, in its love-story scenes between Cage and Biel.
During the action sequences the mix is very aggressive. Sound effects are panned throughout all five main channels, with everything from gunshots to flying debris being panned from back to front, left to right, etc. Throughout it all, dialogue is always clear and never overwhelmed by the extraneous sounds. It is during these sequences that the LFE channel gets the most use and offers some truly ground shaking low frequencies.
In quieter scenes, the surround channels are used mainly for ambience and natural sounds, but they are still utilized with good effect and a cohesive soundstage is always maintained. Overall, it is an engulfing soundtrack with good dynamic range and realistic sound special effects.
The Extras
Kudos should go to Paramount for providing all of the video extras on this disc in high definition. This is a practice that should be more common for Blu-ray Disc releases instead of the constant barrage of 480i/p extras we are inundated with. Unfortunately, the extras provided on this release offer nothing truly compelling and are hardly worthy of a first viewing, much less a second viewing. In particular, the Two Minutes in the Future with Jessica Biel mini-featurette, if one can call it that, is a piece of fluff that could have been left off the disc. If only I could go back in time, I would... so as not to watch it.
Extras included on the disc are:
Final Thoughts
Next provides numerous adrenalin-inducing action sequences that are unfortunately interrupted -- not infrequently -- by the even more far-fetched love interest storyline interwoven into its plot. Sadly, Next falls flat on all counts and comes across as a pointless movie and a waste of a good 90 minutes of time. There are far better films one could spend time watching. Neither the slightly above average picture quality nor the excellent PCM soundtrack on this Blu-ray Disc release can rescue this release.
Where to Buy
Product Details
| Overall | |
|---|---|
| Video | |
| Audio | |
| Movie | |
| Extras |
