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Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel

What are Academy-award winner Nicolas Cage [Leaving Las Vegas] and Academy-award winner Julianne Moore [The Hours, Freedomland] and Jessica Biel [in the excellent film The Illusionist] doing in this terrible excuse for a film? Not much, it turns out. And Biel and Cage? Who cast them as romantic leads? They have zero chemistry and they are thrown together under absurd circumstances. He sees her in his future and makes an effort to change events so that they in fact, end up together. At first sight, she could not be bothered with him. Instead of a no nudity clause, Biel must have a "always in at least one scene in a towel and another in boy shots" clause in her contracts. Not that any boys will complain.

Sample poor dialogue:
"I like the rain."
"I like the rain too."

"Are you going to stick with that story? Because millions of lives are at stake and you could prevent a catastrophe." - Agent Callie Ferris [Moore]

A nuclear bomb is going to explode somewhere in Los Angeles. So what does the FBI do? Find a middling "magician/clairvoyant" in Las Vegas who can see two minutes into the future. It makes no sense. I'm sure the Philip K. Dick story this film bases itself on made a bit more sense and may have been exciting.

Next is far from it. Cris [Cage] does not think he can help so instead of explaining this to the authorities, he goes on the run. When they capture him, he ends up becoming involved, as his new girlfriend Liz [Biel] is now part of the terrorists' plan.

There's one scene where logs are barreling down a steep hill toward Moore and Cage and Cage does this huge leap to save her and it is SO fake looking. Yes, I know films use the green screen but does it have to be of such more production value? It's just awful and jumpy. Moore's role is unconvincing and a throw-away. Hope she got paid very, very well. She barks commands and is just ridiculous. And Cage's Criss Angell-styled dude can fight well-armed military men in hand-to-hand combat after distracting them with a trick. Please.

I will admit the ending is cool. And surprisingly arty and shall I say even unexpected. But then there's the second ending. Boo.

Why do such poor films continuously get green-lit?


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