Next

Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm.

Most critics dismissed Next as a squandered premise, with the ending drawing particular fury — multiple reviewers called it an outright cheat that retroactively poisons whatever goodwill the film had built. A small minority found Nicolas Cage's hangdog charisma enough to make the whole stupid enterprise watchably fun, but that's a minority view against a tide of pan.