Aside from a few riveting moments, annoyance and boredom permeate.

Rating: 4/10 (4 April 2009)

Knowing - A page of numbers found in a time capsule from 50 years ago reveals the date and body count for every major disaster (really? on just one double sided page?) from then until up to now. It's up to Ben Gates...I mean Edward Malus...I mean John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) to save the day.
Before I get to the review, anyone else tired of one word titles that this year in particular seems to have accumulated? Taken, Push, Knowing, Duplicity, Fighting, Obsessed... It should be fairly insulting that marketing groups think our intellects cannot remember a title that's more than a word long.
Nicolas Cage is Nicolas Cage. He's been giving the same performance with different levels of quirk and moroseness thrown in for the last 10 years, so you pretty much know what you're getting in to. He's got another dead relative to grieve over, and is rocking the single parent act again. His kid in this film, well...the less said the better. Okay I'll say it. Are there any good child actors in Hollywood? Is it all just based on who Julia Roberts' kid goes on play dates with? The first 20 minutes or so of the film are a bore, as the film takes the longest time of any in recent memory to roll through the credits. Things pick up occasionally and get very visceral, but by contrast make the low points feel that much lower. The film feels very long with several scenes that should have been cut. When there is action, the camera perks right up and we have some quality camera work, but this only happens two or three times. It felt like waiting for a car crash at a NASCAR race. The script offers few thrills as well. Funny (or is predictable?) that a film about knowing what is to come should offer so few surprises.
Another note-worthy problem which this film takes part in: the role and rules of prophecy. Prophecy is in the ranks of time travel in the writer's arsenal; an interchangeable plot device that gets used to the point of abuse. Either prophecies come true and there's nothing we can do about them, in which case there is no reason to watch. Or prophecies can be defied, in which case they were never truly prophecies, which is annoying.
This film has the guts to go through with it's prophecy, but it's still unsatisfying. I feel fairly disgusted that the film implies and seems to campaign for several of my least favorite ideologies: Scientology, Creative Design and the end of the Mayan Calender. Overall the film felt like a waste of time. If it felt meaningful or well made to you, you probably haven't thought it through well enough.
It didn't have Nic Cage in a bear suit and spin kicking women, but it was enough. D+