Knowing is a thriller from prolific director Alex Proyas (Dark City). It stars Nicholas Cage (Adaptation.) and Rose Byrne (28 Weeks Later). Before this movie was out I was happy to see Alex Proyas direct something new but a bit skeptical seeing Nicholas Cage as the leading actor. However, Nicholas Cage actually does a fairly good job (which he should always do, what happened to the acting skills he had in Adaptation.?). This movie, sadly, suffers from a very bad script.
The movie starts with an elementary school in Lexington, Massachusetts 50 years ago. Students are required to draw a picture of anything and then put it in the time-capsule which will be buried and then opened in 50 years. One student however, does not draw, instead she writes a pageful of series of numbers. After 50 years the time-capsule is opened and the papers from the capsule are dispensed to students. Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury), John Koestler’s (Nicolas Cage) son, gets the one with the numbers. John Koestler being astrophysicist, rational and logical man he instantly thinks that the numbers mean something and aren’t just random (note the sarcasm and patternicity; the tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise). Apparently the numbers predict dates, number of victims and locations of terrible accidents. John tries to find answers by harassing Diana (Rose Byrne), the daughter of the person who wrote the numbers. This is where the mystery and excitement is supposed to begin.
Knowing clearly tries to illustrate that there is a deeper meaning for life and that everything is not just random. Unforutnately, this could have been done in so many better ways. The script was simply god-awful. There is very little character development. It is simply shallow and stereotypical. Rose Byrne’s character is depicted as this stereotypical pathetic lost woman which really gets tedious after a while if you’ve seen any of her other strong performances, e.g. Sunshine, 28 Weeks Later. I am very disappointed with Alex Proyas for working with garbage like this. I at least wanted a barely watchable catastrophe-movie. I guess, I have to watch some Ronald Emmerich movies for that. The movie was over-all weak but the ending is the weakest part, making little to no sense at all (Yes, I do “get” the ending, but it’s still bullshit). I see absolutely no redeeming qualities in this movie. Because it had decent special effects and because I feel merciful, I will give it 1.5 stars.
Knowing at IMDB.
