Nicholas Cage discovers his number is up, and maybe everyone else's, in this intense and chilling sci-fi thriller.
A SPECIAL-EFFECTS masterpiece, this superb sci-fi action film finds an astrophysicist decrypting a 51-year-old numerical code in which past multi-fatality disasters were predicted and which also foretells of tragedy to come.
Science lecturer and widower John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) decodes a message from a time capsule dug up at his son's school. The numerical message, written 50 years previously by a disturbed young girl, accurately details the times, dates, locations and death tolls of major catastrophes of the intervening years. The message foresees more tragedies, finishing with one possibly global in scale.
John must alert people while protecting his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), but no one will believe him.
Trying to find out more about the authoress of the message, John convinces the girl's daughter Diana (Rose Byrne) and granddaughter Abby (Lara Robinson) of the danger to come and the frightened quartet set out to do what they can to avert the predicted apocalypse.
Director Alex Proyas keeps the tension tight throughout, allowing the mind-blowing action sequences to speak for themselves, or rather shout, as the accompanying soundtrack is as dramatic as the incredible visual scenes.
Cage employs his intensely furrowed brow to great effect in his portrayal of a bereaved man and devoted dad fighting his demons.
Byrne slightly overdoes her distressed-daughter-of-the-deranged role, but is talented and pretty, so it doesn't matter.
The young ones are believable as kids caught up in something beyond their understanding and Robinson is particularly haunting, playing both Abby and her grandmother.
Cage has come under fire for what have been perceived to be a string of recent duds film-wise, but I consider these to be his best and will happily add this to that list.
This visual extravaganza may not be in the league of Cage's Uncle Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now, but as a spectacle and a random chaos versus predetermined fate question this could well be apocalypse wow.
