I believe that applying expectations of the "Blockbuster Futuristic Action" movie with the "Traditional Science Fiction" stories may not be a fair, especially in the case of "Next".

My opinion is that at its core, "Next" is an exploration of the cosmological concept of multiple realities and psychic concept of pre-vision. If one relaxes the rules a bit and accepts the premise, then it becomes the story teller's job to explore just how such a thing could actually work. I believe the movie scores on these points with much credit due to Tamahori and Cage. The exploration of the concepts "what is it like to experience a pre-vision", and "how could a human actually manipulate multiple realities to exploit these pre-visions" was a clever combination of action and smarts. Simply put: "Next" was like the most clever parts of the "Minority Report" pre-cog chase sequence, and reality-challenging "Momento" combined. A Billy Pilgrim - like character "unstuck" in time.

I respectfully disagree with Ms. Zacharek on the points she chose to criticize. The seemingly fleeting romantic and human interaction moments did not strike me as the result of inadequate movie making so much as they may be intended as subtle examples of the tragedy of how the Cage character is forced to interact with people as a result of his gifts; just as the non sequitur "Momento" was a risky but brilliant first person perspective. If I were to criticize "Next" it would have to be that Tamahori had to limit such a rich topic to an hour and a half. Also, color-izing "Next", as was done in "O Brother, Where Art Thou" and "Sahara", with digital-patina software was a questionable decision when compared with simply relying on good cinematography and lighting; jeez, everyone looked like had been sprayed with some syntho-tanning product. At least they didn't shake the camera a lot.

I apologize for the misspelling. The name of the movie is "Memento"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0209144/

It is a brilliant cinematic treatment of a medical condition associated with failure by the brain to store short term memories as long term memories. The story is from the first person perspective using a novel and confusing but illuminating out-of-sequence editing style to convey some of what it must be like to experience life with the inability to store long term memories. (It was nominated for an Oscar and won many awards (check out IMDB). (I saw a documentary about a musician who had this condition; he wrote notes to himself as a substitute for long term memory, but in his case he rarely believed he was the author.)

The parallel I was trying to make is that while "Next" was not quite as radically out of sequence as "Memento" or Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse-Five" (which follows the character Billy Pilgrim as he experiences his life "unstuck" in time an out of sequence), it is a similar first-person perspective and allows you to experience what some theorize as multiple-realities or multiple-timelines. (A concept still explored by main stream scientists.)

Bill Maher's comments are some of the most insightful political commentary in recent history. I share his disallusionment in the seeming retreat by the Democrats in their new roles as majority. Harry Reid appears to whimper: "To say I was disappointed in the meeting [with President Bush] is an understatement". This is not really the bold and historical rhetoric that one might expect of a Majority Leader after years of the administration's Neo-con one liners like "Bring it on" and a true work of art called "the torture memo".

Recognizing that the Neo-con philosophy for the new world order is: 'we paid a lot of money for these weapons, by God, lets take 'em for a spin around the block'. In contrast, the Progressive Democrat philosophy seems to be: 'lets build a coalition to protect ourselves collectively from suicide bombers and militants who would attack innocent civilians'. This is a much more cogent strategy than, as Mr. Maher points out, a hazily defined and perpetual "War on Terror" which, with willful (aka Rove-ified) intent, has no clearly defined military mission that could ever possibly be defined as "accomplished" (as say for example the War against Nazi Germany). If that is the case then the Democrats should assertively communicate their message to the American people; it is the responsibility of a "leader" after all, isn't it?

However, having said that, I believe that there is an emerging priority here that may be overlooked. After reading The Onion's satirical: "Bush Announces Iraq Exit Strategy: We'll Go Through Iran", I thought that perhaps Bush's true exit-strategy for the War on Terror is to walk out of the front door of the White House January 2009. This theory is certainly consistent with Bush's service in the National Guard.

So I was thinking: unless Democrats want 20 years of accusations like 'the left-wing screwed-the-pooch in Iraq', it would seem prudent that they take a more Clinton-esque approach and boldly define the endeavor with tangible goals like: "The War on Al Qaida" and "The War on the Taliban", and deliver, via diplomacy, a real coalition of international forces to bring the leaders to trial in open international court. Educate the public that Bush has, in fact 'screwed the pooch' by making a fiasco out of fighting true terrorism, and has failed to define attainable military goals for the Joint Chiefs. That message would, I believe, give the next Democrat in the White House a fighting chance to focus our collective international goals, insure security, and ultimately allow us to move on to a more progressive domestic agenda.