In 1959 a Bert I. Gordon script gets dumped into a vault, then resurrected 50 years later by Tinseltown's "finest".

Rating: Null/10 (13 October 2009)

A couple of dull kids, a useless prophecy, rock-collecting Nostradummies, and a pair of white bunnies. No wonder Cage was cast in this turkey.
"This is not the end", says Cage's religious Papa - mere minutes before the movie ends. Was I the only one laughing?
Only 10 minutes into the movie, and the cretinous Hollywood liberal propaganda machine strikes: Cage's annoying kid tells his lethargic Dad that he wants to become a vegetarian, and because the kid seems to have a 1556 IQ, this is naturally supposed to translate into "see? see? it's intelligent people who turn vegan". Audiences are generally easily brainwashed, but I still don't think Hollywood will succeed in making even 2-3 people stop eating delicious, HEALTHY meat products due to pitiful "ads" such as this.
Since when are PETArds commissioned to write science-fiction scripts, anyway? Granted, they do know a thing or two about fantasy since they live in a self-made world of utter FICTION, but they know zip about SCIENCE. I suspect that the first draft might have even included a scene in which the Nostradummies send vegan recipes to Earthlings - in form of confusing series of numbers, of course, because these aliens a**holes like playing mind-games with us poor human slobs. "Hey, let's see if they figure out this one!"
The first 10 minutes are over, and we're already bombarded with not one but TWO kids, one of which is a smart-ass. Must Spielberg's cheesy influence spread into every fantasy movie?
X-File-ish, "mysteeeeeerious", mute aliens. But at least they weren't effeminate-looking or as indiscriminate as the bug-eyed Spielbergian morons in "Close Encounters OTTK": those miserable creatures even let Richard Dreyfuss aboard! At least Proyas's Nostradummies had the sense to refuse Cage the much-coveted Galactic Visa, in spite of his whiny pleading. After all, who needs the Coppola Clan spreading their talentless seed throughout the universe? If there is anything positive to be said about Armageddon it's that it'd forever extinguish all traces of Barrymore, Arquette, Carradine, Coppola and Fonda DNA.
I'm mystified about the choice of bunnies, though. Why white? Do the leather-clad Nostradummies have something against yellow, gray, or black bunnies? Alien racists?... And why bunnies, of all critters? The aliens chose humans according to criteria such as intelligence and political correctness, yet are bunnies known for being smart? Or were hares simply too cute/snuggly for our Nostradummies to resist taking them aboard too?
Nostradummies predict the future (in minute detail, unlike Nostradamus's ridiculously vague poems), and yet they make no proper use of this knowledge: "Listen, y'all, we must warn these Earthlings of a series of cataclysmic events, but we don't really want the warning to bear fruition. Basically, we want humanity to perish – while appearing like do-gooders. So no intergalactic e-mails. We'll provide them with dates/locations as random-looking sequences to some selfish, semi- autistic girl."
If they're so psychic, why fail preventing the 50-year vault fiasco? How come they are psychic in the first place? (We're supposed to take that at face value - just because they're oh-so ALIEN.) Why would they bother with the list at all? (They could have just as easily appeared in the year 2009, picked up the kids'n'bunnies, and flown away - without all the Cage-related hoopla.) Why didn't the girl warn the world about each disaster? Was she a bitch, then? If the aliens are so nice why didn't they organize a major rescue party for more than just a few lucky kids and a pair of horny white bunnies? Why would the list even predict so many comparatively minor disasters when a huge one is about to strike? Why would the aliens wait until the LAST MOMENT to pick up their few "chosen ones"? (And then dump them on some Utopist planet where white bunnies can eat their grass and shag all day) A plethora of loose ends and logic holes; I could have swore De Palma wrote it.
An alien race of "whisperers" (they can do just about any trick in the "Intergalactic Magic Manual") refuse to talk to humans, yet they have this vague intention of trying to save them. Basically, the whole thing was a charade, orchestrated just so Cage could wave a baseball bat while playing a scientist(!) in a daft Hollywood big-budgeter Why are all those peacenik Hollywood aliens always so friggin' uncommunicative?
And why are they always so THIN? But I guess that's because they're vegan, hence eat "healthy": the two bunnies are safe... Nostradummies send adult bunnies, but when it comes to humans they only want the young? Are the bunnies supposed to tutor and guide the human kids through puberty and adolescence? No? Then who is?? Don't those all- KNOWING aliens know how useless rabbits are as mentors?
You gotta love the schmaltzy "agnostic-scientist-becomes-believer-again" cliché ending, accompanied by the rape of Beethoven's 6th. They should have played some violins instead. "Son-hugs-Papa in a at-long-last- family-reunion". At least in "Signs" we had an ex-priest re-discover his faith, but here it's an astro-physicist.
Proyas tried desperately to make KNOWING philosophical, but the flick ends up like a MacDonald's balloon with "I think therefore I am" scribbled on it. KNOWING glorifies nonsense, while trying to make atheists and real science look foolish. Proyas's ambitions were lofty – but so were Ed Wood's.
The ending is supposed to be poignant, glorious yet devastating, humbling, thought-provoking, awe-inducing/hope-inspiring, disturbing. But it just ends up looking like another mindless Cage vehicle. Still, I've seen worse end-of-the-world, Sun-behaving-badly flops. Just think of "Sunshine". Or "Last Night": it's got Sandra Oh in it. She makes Cage look like Claudia Cardinale.
Love the last scene: the kids (as Adam & Eve, get it? get it?? the aliens are God) chuck away their bunnies, then walk towards the Great White Tree of Gondor. Where is Saruman and his deadly power when you need it?