'Knowing' (PG-13)(out of four)

Nicolas Cage has done his share of playing unhappy, depressed characters, including his Oscar-winning role as a doomed alcoholic in "Leaving Las Vegas." And in "Knowing," he once again plays a man who is not exactly Mr. Fun, but this time his angst level is raised even more by the fact he knows exactly where and when some major tragedies will occur.

The film begins in 1959, with kids at a Massachusetts elementary school preparing to bury a 50-year time capsule. One child really stands out from the crowd -- a young girl who is the creepiest-looking kid since that girl in "The Ring" -- and her contribution to the class project of writing something to put inside the capsule is to fill out a sheet of paper with hundreds of tiny numbers before she mysteriously disappears.

Flash forward 50 years in the future where we meet MIT astrophysics professor John Koestler (Cage). The professor is still grieving from the death of his wife, and when he isn't drinking or freaking out his students with lectures on how life is utterly random, he raises his young son -- Caleb (Chandler Canterbury from "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"). The boy attends the same school where the time capsule was buried, and when it is finally opened, he gets the paper with all the numbers.

When his dad takes a break one evening from drinking to study the document and realizes the numbers correspond to the dates of past tragedies as well as the resulting deaths.

What's even more troubling is that there are also dates listed for the immediate future. One of these events is the crash of an airliner that happens right in front of the professor when he's stuck in traffic. The scene is extremely graphic and horrific, and might keep a few people from ever boarding a plane again.

The professor seeks out some answers from the daughter of Creepy Girl, and winds up teaming up with the woman (Rose Byrne of "Damages") and her young daughter (Lara Robinson in a dual role as both the girl at the beginning of the film and her granddaughter).

Director Alex Proyas ("I, Robot" and "The Crow") keeps the suspense going and the audience on edge for most of the movie. One especially effective device is the use of mysterious men who show up throughout the movie, standing silently in the distance -- until they move closer and really amp-up the freak-out factor.

The film features great visual effects, although a sequence involving a subway train crash is highly overblown. Cage delivers a solid performance again, although I wonder sometimes if he's cranking out way too many movies. "Bangkok Dangerous"? Why?

Where "Knowing" might lose some people is with the ending, which seemed to provoke a wide range of emotions in the audience. Some were groaning, others were horrified, and some seemed touched. Despite how you might feel about the final 10 minutes of the movie, there's no doubt that "Knowing" delivers riveting moments.