I adore Philip K Dick stories, and am always thrilled when any of them are turned into movies, even if it's a bad one. At least it will get people to read his books (which are *great*) and hopefully it'll encourage more stories to be made into movies. Next falls into the category of an interesting story completely twisted in the movie version. Even more interestingly, if you read the Wikipedia entry on this movie, you'll see that the script went through some drastic changes. It was initially much like the book - and then it was convoluted to turn into what you ended up watching.
In the original story, the main character was a mutant without any thought, emotions or "humanity". He just ate, slept, had sex, and could see into the future to escape harm. The main thrust of the story was that "real humans" were afraid if this mutant went around creating baby mutants that this race would end up wiping out humanity, because they would have the evolutionary edge. The worry was that thinking, feeling "superior" normal humans would be lost while this "animalistic" mutant would take over solely because of his ability to see in the future and avoid harm.
All of that thinking-vs-animal conflict is completely lost in this movie version. Really, the ONLY thing that's the same is the see-into-the-future aspect. Nicholas Cage uses his talents just to make money in a Vegas act and in gambling. The government knows a nuclear bomb is being brought in and they want to have him see into the future to help them stop it. Nicholas falls in love with a woman (Julianne Moore) who has been in his thoughts. You get a variety of situations where Nicholas uses his future-looking to help him woo Julianne, to avoid trouble and so on.
I kept thinking how this was pretty much Groundhog Day and if this had come out first it would have been cool - but it was done SO much better in Groundhog Day that it seemed stale here. Also, where Groundhog Day had believable characters who developed and grew, here the characters were both unbelievable and bizarre. Just why would Julianne go with Nicholas the psycho anywhere? Why are the terrorists doing what they're doing? Why did Julianne react the way she did in the diner (the final time) to Nicholas' repeated attempts to talk with her? It was like they had some ideas but ran into a deadline to begin shooting and just went with the half-finished script rather than actually finishing the storyline up.
There were other random homages in there too. One scene with the government agents "using" Nicholas to watch TV was pretty much straight out of A Clockwork Orange. Maybe someone in the film crew loved that movie and wanted to re-create the scene? It made little sense story wise. Why not have him listen to the radio which wouldn't require eyeball-prying devices? And plus, he's only there for maybe 2 minutes before he says "I don't want to do this" and the big bad agents go "Oh ok well never mind then."
Philip K Dick is famous for his twist endings, but this ending was AWFUL. It made no sense at all for someone who can see into the future and know which path to take. Heck, many things make no sense. Why would he unleash a random situation like "car cascading down a mountain" when he had many other paths which were much more logical? I imagine they wouldn't have made for as spectacular stunts, but that's never a good reason plot-wise. They could have at least tried to make the plot make sense.
It's worth renting this once to see it, just because it is a Philip K Dick story at heart, but this isn't a keeper. It really makes me think that this could have been an awesome movie, if they fleshed out some of the storylines involved. Maybe if Julianne was also a future-seeker which is why she made the comment she did in the diner. Maybe if she was involved with the terrorists which is how they knew to look for him. There were a lot of possibilities in there - but they were all missed.
