I’ve read a lot of Philip K. Dick, but I’m not sure if I’ve read his short story The Golden Man, on which this Nicholas Cage produced and lead movie is (very loosely) based.

But you don’t really need to be directly familiar with Dick’s work because you’ve already seen a shit tonne of his stuff in film form. Let’s start with the big one: Bladerunner? NO? You must be kidding. How about Minority Report, or Total Recall, or A Scanner Darkly? Fine, fucking Paycheck then.

Generally, I must confess, I like my science fiction sane (kooky is fine), and if there’s one thing our Mr Dick wasn’t, the wasn’t was sane. And if there’s one thing the movies based on his stories have been, it’s loosely.

So let’s call this a digression and move on. Bygones.

If you’ve seen the ads for Next, you’ll know already that it sucks. There’s no doubt right? I mean, those glasses things (bit of a shout out to A Clockwork Orange, yeah?) are goofy as shit. And in context, in the movie, they are completely pointless. It has Nicholas Cage in every goddamn minute, and if you’ve seen as many Nicholas Cage movies as I have, you’ll already know what he looks and sounds like, so why bother looking at him for another 90 minutes? As to special effects, well there are quite a few, and honestly the CG just isn’t so great.

So, as we’ve established, this movie sucks.

But this movie doesn’t suck.

How can this even be possible? Don’t ask me, but it’s true.

Whether the precognitive fight scenes, dozens of Nicholas Cages on screen at once, pink clouding hotties, or … I don’t even know what else. But what I do know is that Next has taken a big gulp from the crazy jug, and I’m down with it.

Bask, my brother, bask.

(But only on Tuesdays, because on Tuesday… Well, on Tuesday Next is just $9.50.)