Johnson's abilities catch the eye of tough FBI agent Callie Ferris (Moore, who does her best Clarice Starling impersonation for the post-9/11 crowd). As a lovely red-haired agent, she seems to be the anti-Scully, believing in the paranormal abilities of Johnson when no one else will. Without a really strong anti-Mulder, this feels kinda lopsided.

Johnson also catches the eye of the security detail of a casino, who think he's counting cards. This action catches the eye of Ferris and her FBI team, which in turn catches the eye of some bad guys (headed by 24's Kretschmann) who are smuggling a nuclear device (and other 24 plot devices) into the United States. Ferris wants Johnson to help track the nuke, but he's only interested in tracking a girl (Biel) who has caught his eye in a precog vision from way further in the future than his usual two-minute limit. Everyone caught up? Say "aye."

As always happens when a pretty young girl gets involved with a loner antihero, Johnson has a change of heart and agrees to help the feds track the nuke. Couldn't Johnson see this coming? Not just as a precog, but as a guy who has seen a few movies?

Only a minority of Philip K. Dick to report

A caveat to all Philip K. Dick fans: This movie, as if you couldn't tell, bears no resemblance to the "novel story" (that's how it reads in the credits) "The Golden Man" by PKD. There's a mustard seed of the story in this film, in that Cage's character can see into the future. That's it.

Next is a muddled, illogical mess, too dumb to work as serious SF and not dumb enough to work as a whiz-bang smash-em-up. The film starts out well, with a brilliantly edited and metronome-precise scene in a casino that demonstrates what a guy who is two minutes ahead of everyone else can do.

But the movie has big, fat action sequences that feel forced into the story. There's a car chase that seems like an excuse to have a car chase. A guy who can see two minutes into the future should be able to evade his pursuers, ditch the car and walk away. But ... then we wouldn't have a car chase, would we? Ditto another action scene in the middle of the movie, in which Cage makes a downhill escape amid falling debris (and some pretty shoddy CGI). The movie has already demonstrated that he can evade people with a minimum of fuss, so why should he make a maximum of fuss to get away, unless there's an effects and stunt budget that needs to get burned up?

Cage's precog ability turns on and off as the plot necessitates it. People get the drop on him. He asks questions when he should know the answer. This might seem a nitpick (it's OK when Superman can fly fast enough to turn back time, when just a few minutes before, he wasn't fast enough to catch the nuke that hit California), but when your whole movie's premise is based on this one ability, it's kind of bothersome.

Next is packed with awful, indigestible clots of exposition, and the sense of 24 and Alias urgency just isn't there, despite standard "government guys in Kevlar conducting raids" set pieces.

What saves Next is an abrupt switch of narrative gears in the third act that had the crowd in the advance screening cheering, and that infused the movie with a little jolt of thoughtful SF coolness. The movie had lost me, but after that point, well, I really did care what happened Next.