Well… children will save the world? This could be a message for this latest fantasy for the whole family.

It just so happens that Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) and Noah (Chris O'Neil), two cute, natural-looking kids, brother and sister, come across a strange box washed up on the shore of a Seattle beach. The siblings sneak it to their bedroom and set out to discover the secrets it hides.

At first, it appears the box contains toys, including a worn out stuffed bunny that Emma christens Mimzy (because the bunny told her so). The children don’t tell their parents about their discovery but soon enough strange things begin to happen.

Already, there’s an “E. T.”-ish feeling to it. The kids soon become child prodigies, capable of telepathy and levitation. Their parents (Joely Richardson and Timothy Hutton) don’t see his at first.

It’s Chris's science teacher (Rainn Wilson) and the teacher's girlfriend (Kathryn Hahn) that realize what is happening. The children portend a message of a future culture. The box has been sent into the past by a scientist struggling to find a way to save his dying people.

It is up to Emma and Chris to somehow help the generations to come.

Then there’s a blackout that shuts down their hometown of Seattle. The government traces the source of the power surge to the kids’ home. The Feds (led by Michael Clarke Duncan) take the family into custody, and analyze the “toys.”

Turns out Mimzy is part organic, part highly advanced electronics of futuristic technology. And Mimzy talks to Emma. Mimzy must be returned to the future, with the help of the “toys,” taking with it the life-saving element still present on Earth.

The story is quite convoluted and abundant with science fiction, metaphysical, Zen, new-agey elements.

“The Last Mimzy” is directed by Robert Shaye (founder, Co-Chairman, and Co-CEO of New Line Cinema), whose last directorial effort was 1990's “Book of Love.” The film stars Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan and newcomers Chris O'Neil and Rhiannon Leigh Wryn.

It is produced by Michael Phillips (“The Sting,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”) and directed by Bob Shaye (executive producer of, among other films, “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy).

The film is based on the 1943 short story “Mimsy were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett (a pseudonym for Henry Kuttner and his wife, C. L. Moore); the adapted screenplay is by Bruce Joel Rubin and Toby Emmerich.

It is scheduled for a March 23, 2007 release. “Mimsy were the Borogoves” is from the third line of the nonsense verse poem Jabberwocky in the novel “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” by Lewis Carroll.

Rated PG for some thematic elements, mild peril and language.