For the most part this is a creepy thriller

Rating: 7/10 (31 March 2009)

(This film is difficult to write about with out going into details, and this is the best I could do) Dark film from Alex Proyas about what happens when a time capsule is opened and its found that a sheet of numbers contained inside it seems to correspond to great disasters. As the story unfolds there are three sets of numbers left in the series which begins to worry single dad Nick Cage, an astrophysicist who seems to think that all of life is random and that "stuff happens".( I'm not going to really say more since the less you know about the film the better I think its going to play)
Much reviled (critics) and much loved (movie going public) film is an eerie debate about whether all life is a random occurrence or whether there is a dark order in the machine. I loved the first three quarters of this film which is structured as a dark decent into something potentially horrible. The film doesn't tell you a great deal, indeed we only know as much as Nick Cage does so our minds, like that of out hero, is allowed to wander and draw our own conclusions (indeed even when the film ends we still down know a great deal so the film is going to end up endlessly debated). I think the film works , even with the occasional over acting by cage because the notions of the film that there may be something to the numbers is so well handled that you can't help but feel the tension ,it also helps that the two central set pieces of a plane crash and subway accident are profoundly disturbing in their execution. (Trust me they may look one way in the commercials, but seeing them in the context of the film is truly frightening.)
I don't love the movie as a whole, but there is a point about 90 minutes in when the film hits a bump as it has to angle towards the ending and has to clear up, at least some (but far from all) of the mysteries. Its not that I mind the ending or what happens, its just that there is this sudden turn in direction- a direction that sends us to the end when the dues ex machine is fired up and brought into play and the film is fired through it. What was a well oiled and well plotted film is suddenly rushed and hurried. I was watching things with a "What is all of this about"? or "Where did this come from" attitude.It knocks the film down from a great film to a merely very good one in my eyes.
I like the movie a great deal. I like that the film doesn't supply all of the answers, or even most of the answers. I want to say more, but I completely understand why Roger Ebert reviewed the film and then went back and discussed the film in two further posts where he went into details.
My advice is give the film a shot.