Pretty major spoilers if you're interested in seeing this ... I put in SPOILER alerts.

CAST: Nicolas Cage - John Koestler
Chandler Canterbury - Caleb Koestler
Rose Bryne - Diana Wayland
Lara Robinson - Abby Wayland/Lucinda

PLOT: A teacher opens a time capsule that has been dug up at his son's elementary school; in it are some chilling predictions -- some that have already occurred and others that are about to -- that lead him to believe his family plays a role in the events that are about to unfold.


This movie is kind of like being mugged in Central Park (NYC). Particularly in the North Woods of the park (a really 'wilderness' looking area). You're walking along, suddenly you're in the quietest, most empty place that must exist in the city of eight million. It's cool, it's new, it's got a path that probably goes to interesting places. Then a bunch of thugs jump out and start beating you. That's this movie. Starts cool ... get's beaten down by annoying characters, typical Hollywood sap provided by child actors, and a completely wiggedy-whack ending.

The story is simple. John Koestler, an MIT professor and still grieving husband over his late wife, discovers a string of numbers that were buried in a time capsule fifty years earlier by a girl named Lucinda and given to his son, Caleb. Through an incidental water stain and a stream of drunk consciousness, he discovers that the numbers have predicted every major disaster for the last 50 years ... and there's three more predictions left! The first prediction is eighty-one people dead on the next day in the film.

Meanwhile, strange pale men begin appearing around Caleb, stalking him, whispering to him, (the same whispers that inspired Lucinda to write out the string of numbers), and maybe trying to kidnap him ... ... ...

Ok, not much more to be explained. He tries to 'solve' the code to see if he can save his family. On the way, he meets Diana Wayland and daughter Abby, who were daughter and granddaughter to Lucinda. After some disagreement they start searching together for clues and whatnot. I sort of expected a relationship between divorced Diana and widowed John, a sort of, 'oh look, he's found faith and reason in life again.' Didn't happen. That's not what this movie's about at all.

It's about saving the children. I should've known this was going to be a downhill experience when the strange pale men started showing up.

Of course the first big problem in this movie is the characters. Nicolas Cage is underwhelming ... he's grieving like he doesn't care, the sappy moments with his son are lacking the good acting they need to be effective. Rose Bryne starts out fine as Diana Wayland ... but the script turns her into a screeching terror from hell. You end up really hating her character and just wanting her to die in a fire.

The kids are typical hollywood thriller kids, annoying. Are there any movies out there that star 10 years and under kids where the kids aren't annoying. Where you actually don't want them to die. It's not even that they're bad actors necessarily, it's just that they are in that movie to inject sap, to be the characters you want to live the most, and I don't think you end up caring for them at all ...






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SPOILER
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... When you find out that the third disaster is the end of life on earth, you're generally happy because soon, it'll be over.

But wait, twist ending! The strange pale men ... turns out, they're aliens! Not cultists, not ghosts, possibly angels (yeah, this movie could be viewed as taking a god/religious spin), aliens. They take those two children, and various other children ... somewhere else. Everyone else dies in a fire.

That just doesn't make sense, take a handful of kids mostly from the tweener bracket, who will have trouble surviving on their own on an ALIEN planet. Oh yeah, they show the planet too. With Caleb and Abby hopping HAPPILY to a beautiful tree that looks like one of those fantasy posters you buy for 6 dollars in a Spencer Gifts store or something.

I think the writers wrote themselves into a bind, it's just like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Oh, shit ... aliens, that'll fix it. I mean, I would've been more interested if the disasters had avoided the apocalyptic. If there was a point to John running around solving the thing and meeting Diana. I'm kind of a sap for romance from time to time. Not even a happy ending necessarily ... just something ...

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SPOILER
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Another problem was the graphics. I was actually disappointed at the plane crash scene. The fire really looked digital. At one point, Cage reaches his hand into the fire, and with barely a grimace moves it back out. Hello, someone missed that in editing. (I love how a burning man falls next to Cage screaming, and he covers him with a blanket and just moves on. No bending over to pat out the fire with the blanket or nothing.)

There was another scene that looked like something out of Poltergeist or an associated 70's horror film. I wanted to laugh. The next scene was like a scene out of Bambi :-|. Graphically this movie just falls short at times.

Overall: 2.5 out of 5 ... because it's better than Julie & Julia, the story is anyways, it won't bore you, but that ending and the acting and characters ... :x.




((I do hope people enjoy my reviews, it's actually kind of fun. ))