Movie: Next
Director: Lee Tamahori
Starring: Nicholas Cage - Chris Johnson
Julianne Moore - Callie Ferris
Jessica Biel - Liz
Thomas Kretschmann - Mr. Smith
Tori Kittles - Cavanaugh
Peter Falk
Genre: Thriller/ Action/ Science Fiction
Movie Type: Live Action/ Computer Animations
Mode of Watching: Cable
Date/Time: April 5, 2008/ 9pm
A clairvoyant (Cris) who is able to see what will happen in his life only two minutes before it happens, falls in love with a young woman (Liz) while on the run from FBI agents who need his help to locate a nuclear bomb and the persons responsible for planting it in Las Vegas. After spending a night with his new lady love in a motel room, she finds out that Cris is wanted by the FBI and she is asked to cooperate with them to apprehend him. Eventually Cris is captured by the FBI and Liz is kidnapped by the terrorists who planted the bomb; she would be used as bait to lure Cris to them so they can kill him before he can help the FBI to find the bomb. The rest of the movie is played out in a thrilling cat and mouse chase between the FBI (who have now teamed with Cris) and the terrorists. Using his gift, he is able to rescue his girlfriend and help the FBI stop the bomb. However, the end reveals that the entire movie was just Cris seeing into the future, he then decides to give himself in to the FBI provided that this time they can protect his girlfriend.
The movie had a lot of action therefore a lot of quick scene changes was involved. There were two main scenes one in the mountains of Arizona and the other in the metropolitan area of Las Vegas. For the movie to have a powerful effect on the viewer there has to effective use of camera shots, for example Long Shots (LS), Medium Shots (MS), Close Up (CU) and Extreme LS (XLS), which is a combination of all three. Long Shots give a full picture of the subject, with people an LS is head to toe, MS brings the subject closer to the viewer isolating it from its surroundings, with people it is a head to waist shot, and a Close up isolates the subject from its environment. These along with different movements of the camera and the lens, for example zooming in and out. These visual effects allow the audience to connect to the different situations and also to get a better idea of the nature of the movie. For example, in the scene in the warehouse searching for Liz, they split the FBI group so that they could cover more ground; Cris decided to search alone but with the use of computer animation viewers saw him divide into about 28 individuals so he could also cover more ground.
Without the use of these visual effects the movie would not be as interesting as it was. There was also an abundance of technology used in the movie, like tracking devices, cell phones, televisions and other technological gadgets (which I unfortunately did not identify). This use of technology shows the modernity of the movie and also gave an idea how security/crime personnel use it to aid their investigations. Colour was also very effective as contrasts between scenes at the motel were refreshing and brighter than those at the warehouse. The lighting also contributed to raising the intensity of the action putting the viewer in the actors’ position especially in the warehouse scene, where a few of the FBI agents got killed. Overall it was a good movie very intriguing and a very unlikely but welcome twist at the end for people who do not like predictable movies; with this one you can never know what will happen ‘Next’.
