Thoughtful disaster movie (and then some)

Rating: 8/10 (26 March 2009)

Physicist Nicolas Cage's son brings home a page covered in numbers from his school's time capsule 50 years earlier. Cage works out that the numbers give details of dates, locations and numbers of dead for disasters over the last 50 years ie. they are predictions. And there are three left which haven't happened yet....
That is pretty much what you get from the trailer, and I wouldn't want to say too much more, because what follows is not entirely what I expected. What I will see is that the movie always keeps your interest up, that there are some developments which aren't entirely what you might expect, and that the conclusion is satisfying.
There are some interesting metaphysical and philosophical issues raised early on, but never fully addressed.
There are some unanswered questions (what is the point of the black stones? Does the son's partial deafness have any significance beyond being a justification for the sign language near the end?), but any minor irritation caused by them is more than made up for by the plane crash at about the halfway mark. This isn't a surprise if you've seen the trailers, but it is stunningly well done - completely convincing and absolutely terrifying.
This is a well-made, entertaining and engaging film, and I thoroughly enjoyed it.