Knowing (DVD, 2009)

Based on a story by author Ryne Douglas Pearson, KNOWING is a moody sci-fi thriller that stars Nicolas Cage as John Koestler, a widowed MIT astrophysicist who lives in wooded seclusion with his young son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). When Caleb is handed an envelope unearthed from a school time capsule buried 50 years earlier, its cryptic numerical sequence captures the interest of his dad, who soon realizes the powerful significance of the document, which seems to predict major world disasters throughout history. Unfortunately, there are three calamities that have yet to unfold, and John, aided reluctantly by widowed mom Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) and her daughter, Abby (Lara Robinson), must try to unravel the mystery of the numbers before many more lives are lost. Alex Proyas’s follow-up to 2004’s I, ROBOT, KNOWING returns to the shadowy atmosphere of the director’s revered cult film, DARK CITY, while staying within the realm of the Hollywood big-budget disaster movie. Though the plot takes some outlandish turns, the film is grounded by solid performances from Cage, Byrne, and the impressive child actors, and Proyas further anchors the proceedings in moments of captivatingly bleak realism. Like the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, KNOWING is a pensive and melancholy thriller that rewards discerning viewers willing to follow its strange and intriguing tale.

Bringing a story like this to film must have been extremely challenging and uplifting. What we find here is an extremely troubling, yet convincing story about a hidden enigma in time, written and stored away in a time-capsule for 50 years, only to be discovered by Father and son, John & Caleb Keostler.

Caleb's surprise from the time capsule turns out to be an uncanny, prophetic premonition about hundreds of dates & locations of events that have happened recently throughout the past 50 years, 3 of which are just about to happen.

The film is very lucky to have director Alex Proyas at the helm because of his acclaimed direction for his work in Dark City. Of course, Dark City is the ultimate in crossing geekism sci-fi with mystery and suspense. We must not forget his other well known film such as I, Robot and Garage Days. The visuals & special effects are outstanding. It was surprising how much suspense was in the script (Ryan Douglas Pearson & Juliet Snowden) which gave the film a real thriller atmosphere which continues to build in tone as the mystery is unraveled.

The spooky phrase helps depict the pensive mood and immediate urgency about the following events within the storyline when the question is posed, "What happens when the numbers run out"? That question that is posed, turns out to be the big surprise of the film.

There is one major scene in the film that only the big screen can do justice to. This scene was the airplane crash scene. Even though it was a tad bit unrealistic overall, it was great to watch since there have never been such terrifying things such as this occurrence be filmed at the time it happened. I'm amazed and bewildered just as much as how Nicolas Cage reacts to it. He runs to perhaps save the people who are burning and one person passes him screaming in flames and Cage just says "hey!", what exactly was he planning on saying to him? Like "HEY! Just to let you know, you're on fire".

For all intents & purposes the one question that kept coming up in my mind was why didn't the advance alien civilization just somehow block the Earth from being destroyed in the first place instead of going through the trouble picking someone re-play the role of seeding Adam & Eve on another planet. I'd love to hear everyone's argument about this one, because that's all I could think of when I saw this advanced set of beings with high technology let Earth get destroyed. I would think the situational ethics are a very important part of an advanced society. I would only have to imagine that such a small task would be a cinch to intervene Earth's destruction. I would say accomplishing this would be as easy as giving the Sun some kind shot of some kind of juice to calm it back down again, which could probably have been done all along since they know so much about when it might peak.

In my mind, director Alex Proyas deserves a lot of the credit for the fact that the film is brave, and does not try to replicate a typical Hollywood blueprint. In fact, he even has Cage back on solid footing, an actor I used to love but have been quite weary of lately. I think Proyas deserves the main kudos for turning this into something creative and special, and I'd go as far as to say this it is his best movie since Dark City.

All in All, this film definitely rivets the senses of your humanity & wakes you up from the take-it-for-granted ease & comfort provided by an American/Western way of life.

5/5 for complete & total genius. Thanks, Alex!

Oh boy. Nicholas Cage. *Cracks knuckles* Let's get down to business.

Knowing was directed by Alex Proyas who has brought us such gems in the past as I, Robot and The Crow so he knows how to tell a mystery story. I thought he did a ok job bringing the movie together, but both the plot and lead actor had some flaws.

The story follows Nicholas Cage's son gets a piece of paper out of a time capsule that has a series of numbers covering the whole thing. By coincidence, Cage notices a few numbers match up with a date and number of casualties of a news worthy tragedy. Soon he is dissecting the whole sheet like a mad man and looking up every other sequence to match it with another tragic event where lives are lost. It absolutely kills me that he is supposed to be an astronomer/professor/numbers guru and takes sooooo long to consider that the section of numbers at the end of each sequence could be coordinates to the location of the disaster. Why isn't that his first guess? I thought he was supposed to be genius level. It's already hard to get past that surfer dude accent so please don't dumb this down for the audience, we're all way ahead of you.

(Spoiler Alert, skip this paragraph) Eventually he hunts down the ancestors of the girl who wrote the numbers to try and figure out where they came from and why, but meets a dead end. All he really learns is that the last set of numbers points to the annihilation of EVERYONE ELSE.

This movie is hard to watch only because of Nicholas Cage. There are some movies I have enjoyed him in (City of Angels oddly enough and sometimes Ghost Rider), but all in all he is always playing the same guy with the same surfer voice! The supporting actors don't and probably can't make up for this because they aren't given much to work with. They are solely there for Cage to talk to and think out loud around because he's in almost every scene.

If you can ignore him, this movie is worth watching for a very small handful of sequences. Get past the boring stuff and watch for a plane crashing beside a highway and people running out of it engulfed in flames! Amazing, terrifying, heart-breaking, and exhilarating all at the same time. There are creepy no-face men stalking Cage's son and handing out black stones and they give a couple good scares. Anytime there is a special effects destruction scene, it makes it worth sitting through the rest because they look amazing and we all love some good old-fashioned explosions and destruction, don't we?

I expected this movie to end the way a lot of these destruction movies do but I was pleasantly surprised to see them stay the course and not make up a deux ex machina at the end. I respect that. The plot I blow a raspberry at. The visual effects made me sit up and take notice. I could've cut this movie down to 20 minutes tops to see the good parts.

Fifty years after a time capsule was buried at a local school, teacher John Koestler examines its contents and discovers that it holds many shockingly true predictions. Soon, John is convinced that his family will play a role in an impending apocalypse. Rose Byrne co-stars as Diane Wayland, the daughter of the woman who first buried the capsule, in this tense thriller from science-fiction author Alex Proyas.

Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury

This is a GREAT movie. Fifty years after a time capsule is buried at a local
school, MIT professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) examines its contents and
discovers that it holds many shockingly true predictions. Soon, John is
convinced that his family will play a role in an impending apocalypse. Rose
Byme co-stars as Diane Wayland, the daughter of the woman who first buried
the capsule. They together investigate the code found in the capsule and
follow a line of disasters are in the predictions. As they continue they
find an even larger - more shocking disaster. In a great suspenseful ending
the movie ends, but leaves a future for selected ones. Anyone that likes
suspense and mind bending movies will truly enjoy this one, and it will make
you want to watch it again to see if you missed anything.