Wow ... what a pile of garbage

Rating: 3/10 (29 March 2009)

I don't expect a film about the apocalypse or premonitions to be the smartest movie ever ... hell, those 'disaster' movies where the hero charges around saving people are pretty much standard Hollywood fluff, and aren't too intelligent - but they are rarely this stupid. Its like they took all the annoying elements out of these movies and put them all in one (think Independence Day but without the bad jokes to forgive it for the stupidity) In parts I felt like I was watching a kids flick with gory disasters and spooky pedophile stalkers added in for effect. The kids were (as is often the case in these type of movies) annoying. But this time around the adults were so much worse. And the acting was just plain awful all round.
The most annoying thing though was the plot - it didn't make any sense. These advanced aliens can predict the future and feel the need to impart this to some kids to write it all down as a set of numbers in the hope some college professor figures out what they mean. But in the end, it doesn't matter what they mean, they're all going to die anyway. Lucky the aliens feel like saving the kiddies. Now I get the whole religion-aliens/angels take on the movie, but it doesn't feel any less dumb.
To sum it all up: Nicholas Cage's acting was awful, his 'son' was annoying, Rose Byrne's character was plain stupid, Cage's character was a total idiot, the aliens ending was ridiculous, and really, the only good thing was that they got what they deserved - toasted to death in a fiery inferno (too bad they kids escaped with their bloody rabbits).