Next

The movie Next, directed by Lee Tamahori and released this year, is about a man who can constantly see two minutes into the future. This man, played by Nicholas Cage, tries to live a normal life until a nuclear bomb goes missing and the FBI tries chasing him down in order to get his help for finding the bomb. He does not want to help because his ability will be exploited and the government will run experiments on him. The government knows he can see two minutes into the future but what they don’t know is that he can see even further into the future when it deals with the girl played by Jessica Biel.
There is one scene in the movie when Cage’s character first meets Biel’s character in a diner and he walks up to her and she tells him to go away. The same shot is then shown again and he tries a different approach but is again rejected. These shots are him seeing what would happen in the next two minutes if he takes these certain approaches. Finally he sees one that works out and he takes it, but had he been unable to see the future, things may not have worked out.
Another aspect of the movie that was like a huge twist was the end when the nuclear bomb explodes and the movie goes back to about the middle and we realize all that had happened was what Cage’s character was seeing in the future. Essentially, he was seeing the future within the future. The main way this relates to the class is that it shows how someone can change the future if they know what is going to happen. This is the whole point to the movie and Cage is constantly using his ability to see the future to change the future.

-Danny Ponticello