Starring Nicolas Cage. Rated 14A.

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that I’ve truly disliked the last several Nicolas Cage movies. That said, Knowing starts off with a great deal of promise. Cage plays John Koestler, an astrophysics professor who discovers a series of numbers recently unearthed in an elementary-school time capsule that’s been buried for fifty years. After breaking the code, he learns that the sequence predicts the date, location, and number of deaths in every major disaster of the last 50 years.

The twist? There are a few disasters predicted at the end of the list that haven’t happened yet. Since the whole bizarre development seems to involve his young son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) and a bunch of creepy, alienlike creatures in long overcoats, Koestler becomes increasingly desperate to get to the bottom of things.

Director Alex Proyas (I, Robot) does such a good job of setting up the first third of the movie that he even manages to distract us from Cage’s annoyingly overripe approach (which includes everything from the simian look he uses to register puzzlement to the toupee that rests on his head like a hunk of leftover meatloaf).

I wish I could tell you that the exquisite sense of suspense lasts, but by the time Koestler attempts to unlock the mystery by getting to know a young mother (Rose Byrne) and her daughter (Lara Robinson), the story is already being weighed down by cheesy special effects and a disturbing, almost evangelical undertone.

When the professor discovers that the last event on his list could mean nothing less than the end of the world, we feel like we’re watching a movie whose sheer excess has painted it into a creative corner.

Be prepared for an ending that’s a total cop-out.