Why should I be embarrassed that I loved this?

Rating: 6/10 (10 August 2009)

A good sci-fi movie should have a few things. Firstly, a possible, yet not always plausible, vision of the future. Secondly, an intriguing story and finally impressive design. I found that all of this was there. The solar flare ending of the world is not as far-fetched as most of us would like to believe and the abundance of earth candidate planets cannot be denied. Although why we would be saved as a species, I am not clear with! The film is a fast-paced action filled, dare I say, great movie. I found myself overlooking the fact that Nicholas Cage's acting skills are almost as wooden as the crucifix that wishes it was in this movie, because I had fun watching it. I was desperately waiting to see what disasters would befall our race. I enjoyed that Alex Proyas refused to bow to the modern-day action/violence cliché where people are killed remarkably quickly without suffering or gore in order to keep that much loved 12A cert, and instead showed some quite harrowing and realistic disaster scenes. The film kept you wondering to a certain extent, enough to keep me enjoying the film so I don't see why there was so much hate for it. Now, I know the ending has splintered people into groups and here's my outlook on this.
*************ENDING SPOILERS*************
After the kids are taken up to the ship and Nicholas Cage farts out his last cruddy moan, my partner turned to me and said, as I expected 100% "we better still see everyone else die!". I completely understand that this is how audiences work. They came to see the film after watching a trailer filled with exciting death and destruction scenes so they're going to want to see the world burn. I get it! I too wanted to see Nick Cage screaming for his life with his skin falling off and his hair on fire, sadly this did not come to pass; he did snuff it however, so all is good. You know they can't end the film there as you need to be shown that the kiddies were not taken to planet Boobieblam and chopped into cosmic pie, cue the 'Adam & Eve' scene. Look, you can't please everyone, but you did please me so 6/10