Not as good as it could have been.

Rating: 4/10 (20 July 2009)

Nicholas cage has done some strange films before, usually they are pretty good. This movie on the other hand is a lot of nothing building up to a tremendous thud. The beginning starts out very promising with a disturbed girl in 1959 named Lucinda, who oddly enough is not evil and bent on killing people, who hears voices. She writes a note filled with numbers, that as we all know can predict forth coming disasters. It is placed in a time capsule and is opened in 2009 by Cage's son. So right there it seems like a cool plot, Cage will get the note and be the only one that believes it.
Now we get more tossed into the mix, the Strangers come along and start messing with him and his son. Now this causes him to go after the Lucinda's daughter. She and Cage get together with their kid's to try and stop the final disaster. Not so believable due to the fact that at first she runs from him before they can really talk and then eventually ends up on his door step ready to believe. We spend a good hour of the film trying to decide what the final disaster could be.
This is where the film makes no sense, I will try to not say too much. We find out the Strangers have known about this for a very long time. This disaster will be global, but rather than warn or help us at all, they work in the background against Cage and his efforts to help everyone. When it is revealed what their intentions are and can do to help, you are left wondering what the last 50 years and torturous effects on their victims were for. That is going to be the extent of the spoilers as the ending just needs to be seen to be judged for yourself.
In all honesty, I think Nicholas Cage needs to start doing scripts with some more substance and be less artsy. I really do feel that this was just a waste and I'm a little cautious to even pick up more films in this vein. Again, I think that a solid story, while it maybe considered a little stale, is better than a story that starts out solid only to put in extreme twists just to keep you guessing.