Bad movie

O.K. I'm not watching videos with Larry anymore on "school" nights because he falls asleep halfway through and I stay up until midnight watching some dreck like Knowing.

To be fair, the first half was great - gripping, touching, intriguing. But what were they thinking? The last 30 minutes were just not worthy of the rest. It's such a mish mash, borrowed from tons of other movies.

They clearly wanted to make a movie with some awesome action scenes, so they had to shoehorn a bunch of plot into it that would allow them to do that. What purpose does any of that serve for the actual outcome of the film - zilch.

A lot of other plot developments are completely pointless as well - the time capsule serves no real purpose, the tortured child from 1959 who can predict the future isn't really necessary to the end either. And why do the trench-coated men continually threaten Nick Cage's son (named Caleb!!)? Why not just rescue him and get on with it? And what was with the black stones - talk about a red herring. And why is Caleb writing a long list of numbers at the end of the movie like Lucinda did at the beginning? He's about to get whisked away to a new planet - what could the list mean and who would it be for? Totally random stuff seemed to get thrown in without much concern for explaining it.

Every single idea in this movie has been done before, and done much better. For example, the kindly aliens helping us prevent or survive the end of the world can be seen in The Day the Earth Stood Still or Contact. The recently deceased mother/wife made me think of Signs, which has some similar themes about faith and loss, and, while not a great movie, actually manages to be coherent. The derivatives go on and on.

What was really annoying was the half-assed religious symbolism, like references to Ezekiel and the Garden of Eden. Having Nick Cage's character be a scientist whose father is a minister should have given the filmmakers an opportunity to consider science vs faith (done to good effect in Contact), but they never do much with this subplot. They seem to be making some kind of statement about the necessity of religion, but Cage's scientist was right about the sun flares (validating science). There's an intriguing presentation of determinism vs randomness at the beginning of the film, but where the movie stands on this issue is a mystery even after the credits roll (does having kindly aliens rescue a few members of mankind count as determinism or randomness?) The movie really doesn't seem to have any idea what it wants to say about anything.

I would love someone to take the first half of this movie and give it the denouement that it deserves. Of course, watching Nick Cage's character drive through Manhattan just before the world ends, passing people looting the NY Public Library, you do feel like the human race gets what we had coming to us.

Not a waste of two hours, but damn close to it. Super frustrating, because it had the potential to be a lot better than it was. And Nick, really dude, you made Birdy and Cotton Club. Get a grip on yourself.