Requires the suspension-of-disbelief to the max!

Rating: 8/10 (5 April 2009)

The movies starts off with a prologue about a disturbed girl, Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson), whose class was asked to draw pictures to be placed in a time capsule 50 years ago. She however writes down numbers on the paper instead. Then, being out of time to completely write the whole thing, she runs away and scratches the remaining number at the back of a door. This gives us a clue that this movie is probably about psychic and predicting the future. But let me tell you that it has nothing to do with any of that.
Skip 50 years later, and we meet a teacher John Koestler (Nic Cage), an agnostic son of a pastor, whose son, Caleb, goes to the same school as Lucinda. Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the school, the time capsule is dug up and opened. Students from the school are given the envelope containing the pictures from the students 50 years ago. Somehow, probably by fate, John's son received Lucinda's envelope containing the numbers. Curious of what it means, John tried to find a pattern from the number and what he found are some chilling predictions of disasters that have occurred and those that have yet to occur.
John, believing that he is somehow responsible to stop this disaster, meets with Diana (Rose Byrne), the daughter of Lucinda, to find out more about her mother and try to stop it from happening. And that's the basic premise of the story.
The storyline will hook you on pretty fast. And will keep you guessing throughout.
The special effect is just tremendous and this is really no surprise coming from director Alex Proyas whose last movie was I, Robot. The highlight of the movie, I have to say, is the plane crash scene where John is caught in the middle of a traffic jam and a plane suddenly crash a few metres away and he tried to save some of the people from the crash. What's so amazing is that it is in a single continuous shot and it feels like you are a part of it. Quite frightening, too. And the last apocalyptic scene will take your breath away. It did mine.
The acting is slightly good. Keyword: Slightly. It is everything you might expect from Nic Cage. And Rose Byrne is slightly over-acting. While the rest of the cast are pretty generic. Not good, but not bad either.
The only problem with this movie is that the premise that has been set at the beginning of the story is not well-played with the ending. Quoting John Koestler, "S*** just happens." It felt like the writer had a change of mind midway through writing the story. And this might leave some viewers disappointed. Hint: Indy 4.
But this movie is for everyone. Seriously. It has the element of suspense, horror, supernatural, disaster, action (a quick chase scene), drama, scientific jargon, etc. But to fully enjoy it, we are required to use our suspension-of-disbelief to the max and just accept what's happening on screen.
Hey, this is a movie... "S*** just happens."