Not a science fiction movie

Rating: 5/10 (10 July 2009)

Another warning, spoilers below.
My comment here is not so much to argue the good or bad of this movie, although my vote does give away I think there's more of the latter than former.
My point is that it seems odd that the major theme of the movie seems consistently misunderstood or overlooked. Now there are about a gazillion comments here so I imagine someone has brought this up, but I've run past comment after comment that either praises or lambastes the role of the "extraterrestrials" in the movie.
Because those weren't aliens, they were angels. The overarching "hopeful" (other than the end of the world that is) message is the existence of God. If you think about it, so much of the dialog and plot is given to pounding you over the head with it - I can't believe so many people miss it. In case you need a road map to the clues:
-John's father: is a pastor -John: Has no faith in God (I think sh*t happens) because of his wife's death, which is no doubt the source of his estrangement with his father. -John's wife's death is in the numbers: I think it's there to comfort John that there was nothing he could have done to stop his wife's death. Oddly (to me) he doesn't seem to get that message. -Prophecy: Biblical term especially in regards to the end of times, mentioned over and over. -The Numbers themselves: How would aliens KNOW the future? They wouldn't. God would. One of the more maddening comments was "...how would the aliens know when the time capsule would be dug up and land in Caleb's hands?" Well number one you're right, aliens wouldn't, only God would. But more importantly if you think about it, the angels didn't seem to be paying any mind to what adults were doing. Their job was clearly to chauffeur the kids to a new world before somebody turned on the broiler, and they came to collect the children as soon as it was time. It didn't seem to matter to them whether John or any other adult knew anything. -The drawings done by Lucinda & Abby of God also depict religious symbols, including what appears to be depictions of certain types of angels. -John gets his faith back at the bitter end when he says "I know" to his father's last words that this "...isn't the end." It wasn't aliens that gave him back his faith. -The "spaceships": Come on...you didn't find them just a tad "ethereal"?
Anyway, this is not meant to argue the merits of the movie, only to point out what I thought was the most important message in the movie, whether it's poignant..or lame, well that's up to you.
But I'll end by pointing out what I think is a huge plot hole: OK, so one possibility is either God, the angels or the aliens knew Lucinda was going to bury the paper, that it would be dug up, and wind up with John 50 years later. Except for it being a plot to a movie - towards what end was this done - solely to give John his faith back? Because in the end, that is the only thing that changes. Nobody (other than the main characters) else on earth knows what John does at the time of the end, and nothing changes because he knows.
The other possibility is that John got the numbers by chance - which I think would be a clever and ironic twist to a movie that is going out of it's way to disprove the chaos theory. That would make sense, since I said earlier the angels did not seem at all interested in what adults were doing - they started coming for the children long before John figured out what was going on. Only one problem with that scenario. Why would the angels speak to Lucinda? It was clear that at the end only children could hear the angels, as they were to be saved. But Lucinda was not going to be saved, and obviously she was not meant to warn people about impending disasters or the end of the world, or somebody would have listened to her before she died. And remember this, although those numbers were buried, Lucinda carried them in her head the rest of her life. She could have recreated that list a thousand times, why didn't she? Well I think it's because the movie was quite pointed in asserting that nobody could change God's will. So if that's the case, there is no real meaning to what John is doing at all...it's just crazy chance that he figures it out before the world's last heat wave. But again, why would the angels tell Lucinda at all then? If John wasn't "meant" to get the numbers?
So to sum up that leaves us with two scenarios as to why all this went down the way it did:
God decided to make Lucinda's life intolerable so that someday one person (John), the other billions of folks notwithstanding, would get his faith back a few hours before he gets toasted. Who knows, maybe John's life was God's own personal Truman Show.
OR
In a whimsical moment, either God or an angel decided to drop the bombshell on poor Lucinda 50 years early - just for the yuck factor of watching her take a long drive down insanity highway. Let the hilarity ensue.
I guess the producers can explain it away as that wacky and zany will of God.