Mildly Entertained

Rating: 5/10 (15 July 2009)

I didn't expect much going into Knowing—just something to keep me reasonably entertained for a few hours while I stuffed my face with overpriced popcorn—but even the big screen special effects couldn't save a movie as hopelessly absurd as Knowing.
John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), an MIT physics professor, comes into the possession of a paper which contains the dates and locations of every major disaster in the last fifty years. Koestler discovers that the paper, retrieved from a fifty year old time capsule, also makes predictions of major disasters to come, and he attempts in vain to convince those around him that the fate of the entire planet is at stake. The premise, while a bit outlandish, is not so ridiculous for a sci-fi flick, but the unbelievably sloppy movie-making that follows is such a major disaster that one wonders how the director and writers did not predict it, or, for that matter, divert it.
The first two acts of the movie are only mildly entertaining, while seriously lacking in substance. One knows exactly where the storyline is heading, so the only thing that really keeps the movie going is the special effects sequences that occur when John Koestler witnesses the disasters predicted by the paper. Unfortunately, the special effects are hardly enough to keep one absorbed in the movie, let alone keep the whole movie afloat. While at times the CG is shockingly realistic, for the most part it is extremely overdone and unnecessarily violent, which ultimately adds to the strange clumsiness of the storyline. The acting throughout the movie leaves something to be desired, the dialogue was truly appalling, and as the whole film drudges on, more and more characters are introduced but never adequately developed.
The third act is where the movie really takes a turn for the worse as the cheesy sci-fi/fantasy elements of the movie (mysterious men in black trench coats, children hearing whispers, etc) take center stage. The pace of the movie picks up, but the plot becomes utterly ridiculous—something that seems inevitable in a movie that predicts the destruction of the entire planet. The movie is insulting in its stupidity, and it is unclear whether the key to avoiding the imminent global apocalypse (discovered in an abandoned trailer home, mind you) is natural, supernatural, or extraterrestrial. And if the story isn't muddled enough to make you shudder, the movie's execution is just as appalling. The third act of the movie revolves around car chases, magical unexplained rocks, and aliens—wait, no, angels— oh, I don't know. It was unbelievable what the writers were willing to do to make the pieces of their puzzle fit, resorting at one point to killing off a character in the most frivolous way.
The end of the movie was the crescendo of the absurdity, and one has to give credit to the CG animators for attempting to craft a scene as unbelievably senseless and laughable as the conclusion itself. It's hard to really describe how awful this movie is without spoiling the 'plot' or discussing events in detail... You just have to use your imagination—or watch the movie for yourself.
Ultimately, Knowing made the mistake of taking its own subject matter too seriously, when no intelligent person could do the same. And so my one regret about this movie-watching experience is that I didn't see the comically awful movie Next (starring Nicolas Cage) until a few months later—or else I would have had an uproariously good laugh at the expense of Knowing's creators.
Written by Anton for www.overcranked.net