Not with Ebert

Rating: 5/10 (17 August 2016)

I was first attracted to this movie because it just so happened to be the lowest rated movie ever made that was given four stars by Roger Ebert. This director also made "Dark City", Ebert's favorite movie of 1998. I really doubted that I would like this, much less give it four stars, and I was pretty much right. This movie tells the story of a guy played by Nicolas Cage who finds a message written by a kid fifty years ago in a time capsule that's nothing but numbers. He realizes that she listed down all the major disasters in the upcoming 50 years. This raises too many questions. This girl/woman was alive and well for more decades, so why didn't she just tell everyone about the horrible things that would happening? I mean, she did predict the end of the world as the last thing she wrote down. Maybe she just assumed that since the world would end it wouldn't matter that all those other people died.
But then why did she even write this down in the first place? For the positives of the film, I did find the special effects good and it actually does have a pretty original concept. I still couldn't help but think of "Signs". You know, a movie about a guy who lost his faith and learns about aliens coming and has to help two kids survive? I mean, the idea was original, it was just done in a clichéd manner. I do enjoy Nicolas Cage and it does have some rather intense moments. I have to give Ebert credit for giving the full score to such a, well, mediocre movie. I was never into disaster movies to begin with as they were too formulaic. A lot of the scenes just go nowhere and while not terrible, it's not worth your time, unless you want to learn more about Roger Ebert. **