Knowing how well the movie turned out without spoilers

Rating: 6/10 (20 November 2012)

I thought the concept was great, the implementation was interesting, but in the end the reason for that prophetic document was far fetched and didn't make sense. Initially, I was quite engrossed by the movie and thought it might pleasantly surprise me (I didn't expect much from a relatively recent Nicolas Cage movie). I thought the mystery aspect was well built-up. The performance by Cage was better than usual, but then he's usually good at acting quietly depressed. The first disaster sequences were amazing not only in their intensity, but in the way they were shot. That first one involving a plane crash in a sequence of roughly 3 minutes with not cuts was viscerally gripping as if you were really there.
Unfortunately, the movie fell apart in the last quarter because of a few things. The aforementioned revelations were certainly shocking, but why were they made in that indirect, stupid, relying-on-luck-and-finding-someone-smart-enough way (document lost in time capsule for 50 years) when they could have easily been made directly to the people involved? It's not as if the responsible parties weren't around all those years! One might argue there couldn't have been a movie then, but whenever I try to think too much about common sense logic, the plot doesn't make sense. Characters also started acting irrationally. Considering what was happening, this might be excused. What cannot be excused however is how poor the acting by the modern kids was. I had already noticed how unemotional the main boy and girl were, but their seriously lacking "emoting" near the end basically ruined any emotional connection with me, the public, there should have been. Even Cage, more believable, could save that climactic moment.
So despite an initially thrilling slow-paced mystery with exciting, yet short, disasters sequences, the film didn't work for me intellectually or emotionally. It's also a case of a lousy ending (and no, it's not because of the tone) ruining the rest. For the first three quarters of the film, I would rate it a 7 or 8. The last quarter I would rate a 3 or 4. I cut the apple in half for my final rating.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10 (average-good)