Leave Before The End

Rating: 6/10 (29 March 2009)

The basic ingredients for this film are all here, a fine Big Budget Director (Alex "I Robot" Proyas), Big Name Leading Man,Nicholas Cage, the guts of a good story, and lots and lots of money. Sadly, it is holed below the waterline with one of the worst endings I have seen in Cinematic History, a view shared by virtually everyone whom I know who has seen this film.The relatively interesting plot also suffers prolonged assault from a very poor script offering trite, clichéd mechanical dialogue.
Recovering a 50 year old time capsule from an Elementary School is a promising enough start. Child actor Chandler Canterbury , as Caleb Koestler has a father who is an University Professor schooled in Random and Determinist Theory, who has a friend who is an Astro- Physicist. When Caleb is given a 50 year old list from the time capsule it is not difficult to guess where this story is heading. Disasters are both foretold, and anticipated and their place in them becomes central to the plot.
A plane and subway crash,separately, are brilliantly realised in two of the most compelling disaster sequences I have seen, these two items alone score 6/10 for the film. The exact denouement is reasonably concealed, but whenrevealed is preposterous, absurd, risible and excruciatingly realised.
Out of nowhere an ET moment occurs so sickly sweet and devoid of credibility and tension that all before it is destroyed. Why Caleb doesn't cry to his Dad ,"This spaceship is really cool, I'm going on board to take a look," is beyond me. We then have a hugely impressive, and pointless, "Day After Tomorrow," sequence as New York is wiped out AGAIN ( this City must have some bad movie karma).The closing frames of children holding hands, on a mythical planet, clutching cuddly rabbits as waving wheat and barley sweep around them in a verdant valley, complete with the Tree of Life is about as ill-advised as it gets.
If the studio had halved the budget, a credible ending and script might have emerged. Instead we get lazy, bloated Hollywood at its very worst. I await the DVD release purely to see if there is an alternate ending. Otherwise, enjoy a reasonable enough effort  and leave 20 minutes before the end. You will feel much better for it.