Friday, April 6 12:00 AM ET

Trailer Review: Spider-Man 3

By Brian Briggs

Like the Nicolas Cage character in this week's trailer, Next, I can see the future.  In the future I see all the stories by Philip K. Dick will be made into movies.  At that point, it'll be time for remakes of the ones already made.  The cycle will continue forever, and Hollywood won't need any more science fiction authors to draw their ideas from. 

Based on the Dick story, "The Golden Man," Nicolas Cage plays a man who can see his future.  This is a great power.  As we learned in Spider-man, "With great power comes great responsibility." What does he do with this power?  Apparently, he uses it to get Jessica Biel, because there's no way she'd end up with a guy that looks like Nicolas Cage otherwise.

The government has other plans for him.  They want him to use his powers to help them stop a major catastrophe.  He just wants to be left alone.  The trailer opens with Cage tied to a chair with Clockwork Orange-type devices that keep his eyes open.  Julianne Moore is interrogating him.  In his vision he sees a nuclear bomb going off.  She asks him what he sees.  He replies that if he tells her what he sees, she'll never let him go.

I wonder why she's in the movie? Hmm...

Obviously the government would want him to stop disasters, or to further their own agenda.  Next the trailer backtracks to a free Nicolas Cage driving his Mustang through the streets of Las Vegas.  So with this great power he's using his clairvoyance to get chicks and win money gambling.  Great responsibility.

After he uses his powers to evade the police,  we see him with Jessica Biel.  He's explaining to her that he can see her future, and even farther into the future than he can with anyone else.  Unfortunately, he sees her strapped to a wheelchair and then exploding. 

Next we learn that Julianne Moore is a government agent, and she advises using any means necessary to capture Cage.  The chase is on, but it's hard to catch a guy that can see the future. 

When they finally catch him, Julianne tells him that millions of lives are at risk and that he could prevent a major catastrophe.  That's the moral question this movie will use to make it seem more than just an action movie.  Are you obligated to use your power to save others, at the sacrifice of having your own life?  Or do you let others die, because you want to have nonstop sex with Jessica Biel?  It's a tough decision.

"No, please don't blow up Jessica Biel!"

We see some more action montages, with Cage using his clairvoyance to save himself from a sniper, from a car falling down a mountain and another car flipping over. 

The trailer ends with Cage yelling "I made a mistake," and a nuclear bomb detonating.  Let's hope he's able to change that future,  because we'd all hate to have Jessica Biel killed.

Ending Prognostication:  I don't have the clairvoyant powers of Nicolas Cage, but I predict a murky ending where we aren't quite sure if everyone gets saved or not.

Conclusion on Trailer:  The trailer lays out the concept well.  The special effects are good and the acting isn't bad.  It feels like it gives too much away, but with a movie that can mess with the timelines, I think there's enough mystery left.

Conclusion on Movie:  This movie looks promising, but holds the risk of giving us an ending where we say, "WTF?"  Let's hope it doesn't contrive some crappy ending, or spend too much time explaining how he can see the future.  I'll give it a recommendation, despite those worries.