Knowing was not even remotely on my radar three weeks ago. There was no desire until Ebert gave it 4 stars and then my boss saw it and had some interesting things to say. All of a sudden I found myself in front of a movie theater asking for one to Knowing. But what is this movie? Is a Supernatural thriller? Is it a horror film? Is it a family drama? Could it be a disaster flick? Generally speaking I have no idea with a movie operating within a few different genres. This particular movie just refused to be nailed into any genre for too long. However, from the trailer I could tell I would have a problem: It prophesied the end of the world and movies never follow through on that. Therefore, I was going in with the thought that Nic Cage was going to stop the end of the world. No good can come from that!
In 1959 a creepy little girl wrote down a string of numbers that got put into a time capsule. In 2009, John Koestler(Cage)'s son Caleb(Chandler Canterbury) gets that string of numbers out of the time capsule that commemorated the 50th anniversary of that school existing. John and Caleb have an odd relationship, as they are trying to mourn the loss of John's wife, who was Caleb's mother. John is a professor at M.I.T (yes, Cage as a M.I.T professor) who is teaching a class in determinism vs. total randomness. One drunken night, he looks at Caleb's string of numbers and starts seeing patterns in the numerology. The numbers represent dates of major world wide catastrophes and the number of people killed in each event. Not surprisingly, he cannot get anyone to buy the theory, but at the end of the list were events that had not happened yet. Then, one happens right in front of him. An airplane crashes and John believes this list was meant for him, but why, if he cannot change the results? He seeks out the family of the little girl and soon he and his son are joined by Diana(Rose Byrne), the daughter of the little girl in 1959, and Diana's daughter, Abby. It seems these four people are meant to have this list and meant to follow clues. Caleb and Abby are very in tune with these whisper people who show up often to scare the crap out of Caleb and John.
I feel that in order to really review this movie properly I have to spoil the movie. I do not like doing it, but I think one's entire opinion of this movie rests in spoiling it. First off, the first 85 minutes of this movie are worthless. The prologue goes on for far too long and the set up is annoying. I think if it was more focused in the first half, it could have been an excellent movie. However, it tried for scares and tried to be a family drama. It tried to satisfy too much at one time, as if the script was unfinished, but they shot the movie anyway. The acting is disastrous from everyone, but Cage takes the cake trying to deliver lines like "How am I supposed to stop the end of the world?" That being said, something weird happens that kind of turns the movie around.
Once the foursome get together, things pick up. The two adults leave the two sleeping children in the car and go investigate a creepy home in the middle of nowhere. While they are in the house, the whisper people come to visit the kids and it has a very creepy vibe, but not scary, just creepy. The scene cuts back and forth as the adults figure out that the last digits are not 33 but the letter E backwards twice. The cutting gets quicker and quicker and eventually the kids scream, Cage runs out and chases the whisper person. He catches up to the whisper person, the whisper person turns around to face Cage, opens his mouth very wide and a bright light temporarily blinds Cage. From there, you realize anything and everything is possible in this movie. As soon as you realize that, director Alex Proyas proceeds to throw everything possible at you. First off, the religious undertones start getting a bit more overt. Cage calls his preacher father when he realizes the end of the world is eminent. They have this quasi-religious conversation about death and life. Then, the whisper people do some more mojo and get the kids. Then Cage finds the kids, with each child holding a bunny. Then the kids tell Cage they have to go with the whisper people. Cage does not understand at first, but then the movie gets totally bizarre!
The whisper people have a spacecraft (?!?!?) and they shed their human skin and are just figures of muscles and joints. Cage understands what is happening and says good bye to his little boy. As these "Beings" levitate to their ship with the kids, it is possible they sprout wings like angels. It is possible they are Beings from God. After they skyrocket it on out of there, we see dozens of other spacecrafts leaving Earth at the same time. Then the the biggest whopper of all happens: THE EARTH GETS DESTROYED!!!! Knowing actually had the balls to end Earth! And it end with a big sunburst of fire and energy, that moves over the cities like a a literal heat wave. EVERYONE DIES!!! How freaking awesome is that?? Oh the effects of the demolition are stupendous too. For the close of the movie we see the two little kids and the two bunnies dropped off on a new Earth, where they run to a giant Tree of Life.
Your opinion of this movie will rest with your ability to just go with it. I think everyone will like the plane crash and the scene of Cage trying to find survivors, which was done in one pretty breathless take. The subway crash has a really cool shot that will amuse people and the demolition of Earth stuns, but if you cannot buy into aliens or angels suddenly appearing to take children and animals to a new planet, you will hate the movie. You will be disgusted. What I liked about the whole thing is how almost ambiguous it is. You can buy the theory that they are aliens and therefore, God has nothing to do with anything and higher intelligences control our actions and determine our fates. However, you can see them as angels doing God's work. I think Knowing succeeds in having it both ways. There is comfort to the characters in believing in God and heaven. So it is easy to make a case for that. The movie leaves the audience with more questions than answers, but that is not necessarily a bad thing, is it?
I know four people who have seen Knowing and all four of them had vastly different reactions. That is the kind of world in which this movie is operating. I imagine college philosophy and religion professors are going to get their hands on this movie and show it to students and college students will study it. Alex Proyas has made a living of doing dark movies about humanity. Knowing is not as dark as Dark City or The Crow and it is not as tight or coherent as I, Robot, but there is something very interesting about it. I want to see the movie again, but I want to skip the first half. I just do not think that is possible until it comes out on video.
Final Grade: B-
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