Las Vegas showroom magician Cris Johnson has a secret which is a gift and a curse which torments him: he can see a few minutes into the future. Sick of the examinations he underwent as a child and the interest of the government and medical establishment in his power, he lies low under an assumed name in Vegas, performing cheap tricks and living off small-time gambling "winnings." But when a terrorist group threatens to detonate a nuclear device in Los Angeles, government agent Callie Ferris must use all her wiles to capture Cris and convince him to help her stop the cataclysm. - skip ad - Genres: Action/Adventure, Science Fiction/Fantasy, Thriller and Adaptation Running Time: 1 hr. 36 min. Release Date: April 27th, 2007 (wide) MPAA Rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violent action, and some language. Distributor: Paramount Pictures Cast And Credits Starring: Nicolas Cage, Julianne Moore, Jessica Biel, Tory Kittles, Michael Trucco Directed by: Lee Tamahori Produced by: Gary Goldman, Jason Koornick (II), Ben Walsbren

In “Next,” a crummy action and speculative-fiction hybrid, Nicolas Cage plays a guy who can see into the future two minutes at a time. It’s too bad that Mr. Cage couldn’t tap into those same powers of divination to save himself from making yet another inexplicably bad choice in roles. Once one of the more enthralling actors in Hollywood (“Leaving Las Vegas”), Mr. Cage these days seems all too content to waste his and the audience’s time in tacky genre throwaways, not that “The Wicker Man” or at least the hilarious highlights reel of same that eventually made it onto YouTube didn’t provide some serious yuks.

What’s bittersweet about all this is that Mr. Cage remains an insistently watchable screen presence, as even this dopey movie proves. In his day job, Mr. Cage’s Cris Johnson works in a low-rent Vegas casino as a no-frills magician pulling doves out of his coat sleeves and modest factoids out of the minds of his audiences.

He supplements his earnings by playing the slots and blackjack. Allergic to trouble and the overly curious, he keeps his profile low by betting only against the house, trying to cash out before he attracts too much attention. Ah, but there’s trouble afoot in the form of a pushy F.B.I. agent named Callie Ferris, played by Julianne Moore, yet another performer who seems intent on breaking the hearts of the faithful.

Jaw locked, Ms. Moore seems terribly unhappy to be here, and it’s no wonder. Her character is working the anti-terrorism beat, which requires her to be at once expert at her job, because she’s one of the stars of the show, and a political straw woman who freely doles out cruel and unusual punishment while talking about the greater good, mostly because the screenwriters are obviously bored.

She may not be nice, but, dammit, she is on the side of might and right. You see, there’s a Russian nuclear device gone missing, and Agent Ferris knows, despite the eyeball-rolling of her superiors and underlings, that the only thing that stands between humanity and annihilation is a Las Vegas magician with a taste for martinis and blondes.

There’s more, barely. Directed by Lee Tamahori and written by Gary Goldman, Jonathan Hensleigh and Paul Bernbaum, “Next” is based on a nifty short story by Philip K. Dick titled “The Golden Man.” First published in 1954 in the science-fiction magazine If, the story imagines a world in which mutants are rounded up and destroyed.

The title character, a literally golden-hued mutant said to resemble a god, but whose intelligence comes nearer to that of an animal, can see far enough into the future to evade capture. Mr. Dick explained that the story was written when the trend in SF literature was to glorify mutants, which he saw as a self-serving, “dangerous hunger for power on the part of neurotic people.”

Mr. Dick’s story and “Next” have so little to do with each other that the writer’s die-hard fans can relax: the great man’s reputation has not been tainted by yet another knuckleheaded adaptation. Mr. Cage and Ms. Moore have it worse, since the spectacle of these two grimacing through so much risible dialogue and noisy action seems as wearing to them as to us.

AbAbout the only performer who comes out unscathed here is Jessica Biel, who plays Cris’s love interest, a honey-dipped blonde named Liz Cooper. Ms. Biel enters in a gauzy light and sticks around to make goo-goo eyes at Mr. Cage in an itty-bitty towel, delivering a vision of gilded perfection that comes tantalizingly close to Mr. Dick’s original conception.

“Next” is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). Among the palpitating distractions are gun violence, explosions and the sight of Ms. Biel in a low-cut shirt, a sheet and that towel.