5 star for being different

Rating: 5/10 (13 April 2009)

Hollywood has been teasing with "The End of the World" for decades, none had the heart to actually do it, until this film came along.
Nicolas Cage is A depressed "non believing" MIT professor who lost his faith on causality due to untimely death of his wife. To him, everything in universe is random and meaningless. Things pretty much just happen without any meaningful connection with each other. He walks around like a zombie Oblivious of the fact that everything in life is actually pre-determined, until one day his son received a piece of paper full of mad scribbles from 50 years ago. The scribbles are numbers, predicting events before they actually unfold, down to exactly when, where and how many.
Interesting concept, if it is used in a meaningful way. In this case, it made me felt like a prop to fill the giant gap between the melodramatic beginning and the explosive end. There are two ways to interpret this strange phenomenon: 1. Life is indeed pre-determined and pretty much there's nothing you can do about it. 2. Life is not pre-determined but those aliens somehow can know the future. (this sounds really bogus and illogical). The more proper interpretation is that everything is pre-determined. Well, ponder that for a moment tell me if it's not equally bogus. No offense to the religious folks but do you really believe that God pre-determined the existence and the conduct of Adolf Hitler as well? What for? This film got itself in the same trap of those pre-deterministic religions.
The center piece of this story is a piece of paper with numbers written on it. What exactly is the meaning of this information? Is it a warning? What is a warning good for if you can not benefit from it? Warning: you will all die and there's nothing you can do about it. Great! Thanks for having me running around getting all hot and bothered for this eventual and inevitable death. The time might be better spend on tea and biscuit! Aside from the giant plot hole and quite literally WTF center concept, Nicolas Cage is actually quite good and convincing. The kids on the other hand, turned into one of those emotionless aliens before departing earth and humanity. Can you at least wait a few years and let them grow into it? Also, what's up with the rocks? I hope it will be explained in the director cut edition.