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A college professor (Nicolas Cage) opens a time capsule that has been dug up at his son s elementary school. In it are some chilling accurate predictions of disasters... when, where, and how many will die. Most of these events must uncover the details of the next disasters in hopes of preventing them. If he fails, who knows how many will die?
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By darklordzden (Australia)
John Kessler is an astrophysicist and university lecturer teetering on the precipice of despair due to the death of his wife, his self-imposed estrangement from his parents and a difficult relationship with his son. Kessler's cosmology is one that favours an indifferent universe in which humans suffer at the whims of unfathomable random chance. Secluded in his crumbling country house with only an ever-present bottle of Whiskey and Albinoni for company, Kessler finds his nihilistic paradigms radically shifted after stumbling across a piece of paper, unearthed from a school time capsule buried in nineteen fifty nine, which apparently contains a numerical code predicting the dates and locations of the major natural and man-made cataclysms to have befallen the planet within the last fifty years. Kessler's sense of unease is further pricked by the fact that at least three of the predicted dates have yet to pass...
Thus you are introduced to the central conceit at the heart of Alex Proyas film. Well, actually not in that order (you do discover, within the first five minutes of the film, exactly who is responsible for the numbers on the paper) and it was this deflation of potential suspense and mystery, along with a few other directorial and stylistic choices, which just prevented the film from being a latter day classic of existential unease, as far as I was concerned.
Proyas as a director has always been variable. The Crow (Miramax/Dimension Collector's Series) - despite it's seismic influence within the Goth community - was always a film that I could take or leave; I thought Dark City (Director's Cut), bar the first twenty minutes or so, was a work of genius; and I consider I, Robot (Widescreen Edition) to be not only one of the worst films ever made, but probably 'the' worst adaptation of a science fiction novel (if you want to see what it could have been in the right hands, I strongly recommend that you check out Harlan Ellison's unproduced film adaptation, I, Robot: The Illustrated Screenplay, which was published a few years back). That said, this film is one of Proyas more servicable efforts. It is by no means a classic, but it does have a weirdly compulsive sensibility all of it's own that hooks the viewer and, more importantly, and in opposition to most modern Hollywood cinema, it takes it's own sweet time to unfold the plot and develop the characters. On the downside, it does concede to the dictates of overt Spielbergian Blockbuster schmaltz in far too many places, which detracts from the power and ambiguity of the film as a whole.
Performances are decent enough - Nicolas Cage, with a few exceptions, has always been an actor who has irritated me due to his propensity to saddle his characters with quirky affectations. Thankfully, that proclivity is kept to a minimum here and we are treated to a gaunter, quieter more reflective character (something which he does excel at when he chooses too - see his excellent turn as 'Yuri Orlov' in the brilliant Lord of War (2-Disc Special Edition)). Rose Byrne also makes a decent fist of her screen-time as a character whose life has been haunted by the notion of prophecy. Sadly, the two child leads - who turn out to be an intrinsic part of the plot - are merely servicable within their roles, which was something of a let-down.
On the production side, Whilst the foggy, autumnal cinematography was a treat, I found the CGI effects to be extremely weak (but then I always have found CGI to be unconvincing). Marco Beltrami's string-laden score was also, for the most part, a treat for the ears - up until the point where the John Williams imitations became too overt.
On the whole, this film probably only deserves three stars, but I've given it a four because it very deliberately sets out to lead the audiences to their own conclusions about what they have witnessed - something of a rarity in today's big budget cinema. There is a lot going on beneath the surface here. Some of the mythological and religious references are overt (naming a male lead experiencing portents of revelation-style disaster, "John" is fairly obvious ) and some are very subtle (the use of the rabbits - the rabbit having long been a mythological symbol of death, change and transcendence in many cultures) and the final image is as positively Old Testament/Kabbalistic in its symbolism as its possible to be without conceding outright to the dictates of an overt theological interpretation of events.
Proyas should also be commended on his decision to see this dark vision through to it's logical conclusion; I do wonder how many battles he had with studio executives to get his denouement filmed and approved.
A decent film which suffers at the hands of commercial notions of film-making, "Knowing" is definitely a film that I'd advise that you rent, before you buy.
By A reader who is (Dallas, TX USA)
I went into this film not quite knowing what to expect. I was thorougly entertained. At times science fiction, at times thriller - this film was almost a spiritual experience for me and my family. What would you do if you knew the end of the world was on the way? Who are those strangers that keep following you and your family?
Great special effects that did not dominate the movie - from disaster scenes to a "Close Encounters" type ending.
It is really interesting the almost complete scatter of reviews - equally 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. I guess some people really love it - others hate it. I can see why.
By J. Fallon
I have been a fan of Nicholas Cage since "Raising Arizona" :Trapped in Paradise: and "The Rock." As you can tell a long time. This movie just was plain weird. You can probably tell by most of the reviews that the movie is pretty cool, yet predictable up until the last half hour. Cage plays a good role, but the script is crap! You might recognize Chandler Canterbury from Benjamin Button, or that really creepy episode of Criminal Minds; He plays a naive boy that can't figure out that the voices that are whispering in his head are aliens. Overall the movie sucks, I only give it two stars, because Nicholas Cage did a pretty good acting job in it.
By Erin M. Patterson (us)
The previews for this movie sold it VERY well, but it turned out to be a colossal disappointment because NO ONE could make up their minds in the production. This movie is a mish-mash of themes: horror, suspense, and disaster; NONE of which are properly or successfully vindicated through its execution. Nicholas Cage gets the one star on this review for singularly carrying a mediocre script, while the rest of the cast flounders along behind him. The special effects were impressive, but even good special effects weren't enough to save this horrendous movie OR add another star to this review. The brief touches on theology are ill-formed, poorly executed, and inconsistent; it's like the script writers were having a theology war and nobody won so they just threw it all in the movie. The story progression, while well written at times, was mostly too sporadic and fragmented to follow without intense effort. And the story itself just continues down a path towards absurdity until it becomes completely unbelievable..... until in continues further to the point that will have you yelling things like "You have GOT to be KIDDING ME!" and "Oh, COME ON!" at the screen by the time the movie concludes. And the ending.... well, the ending was the final, grievous insult after sitting through a two hour disappointment. Two words Summit: TRY HARDER.
By Bonnie Jo Millslagle (Phoenix Az)
It is one of the best movies I had seen in a long time, But I do not think it would be for younger children, as it might scare them
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