Another doomsday flick ...

Rating: 3/10 (3 April 2009)

...only this time science is sodomized to a much higher degree than in "The day after tomorrow" or "The core". OK, we can live with movies about asteroids threatening the earth (possible scenario), volcanoes erupting where they never have before (quite unlikely but possible), even movies about instant ice age (pure fiction) - but this one went a bit too far. The thing is, I didn't even see it come: the first half of the movie was some kind of a mystery thriller although it required quite a suspension of disbelief - and then it started deteriorating gradually, ending like a cheap B-movie, in a wacky mixture of religious kitsch and science fiction... um, did I say "science"? This may not be the proper word - anti-science or pseudoscience would be a better choice to describe the absurd idea of a solar eruption being so strong that it wipes out life on earth. It also turns out that our main protagonist is the only one who had the "intelligence" to figure out what's coming - obviously he must have gone unnoticed by the Nobel committee for years... What's highly entertaining is the gratuitous use of scientific terms i.e. when Cage's character reveals the fate of the Earth to his colleague, he talks about a "deadly" radiation of 100 µT (micro-Tesla) - which is preposterous as the normal magnetic induction of the Earth is close to that value:)) surely very impressive to those who never heard of microTeslas before!! The final scene showing some kind of rays which for a strange reason seem to advance like a bush fire is just as absurd - everything, and I sh1t you not, really everything goes up in thick black clouds of smoke instantly, be it concrete, steel, glass or even water (!?!?) The buildings start burning from all sides although the sun rays can come only from one direction - a phenomenon which exists only on CGI... and that's not all, those rays are not only capable of setting everything on fire, they are also able to penetrate miles deep into the earth and kill those hiding in caves... wow:)) I guess, nuclear shelters were omitted as a possible hideout as it would distract from the storyline and make it even less plausible i.e. everyone dies except for the chosen ones...
Despite the script which was often kind of moronic, Nicolas Cage pulled off a decent performance. Maybe he was not quite convincing as a MIT professor but I liked him playing the single father except for those schmaltzy parts with the sign language. The kid who played his son (Caleb) needed more support through the director - most of the time he looked like an alien himself, same applies to Lucinda... As for all those religious references - it was sickening, I felt as if they borrowed some ideas from those Watchtower leaflets. Hope to see Nickolas Cage in a better movie soon...