P.O.S., but stylishly directed by Proyas

Rating: 4/10 (12 July 2009)

This movie has been in production for several years, so it isn't too surprising that it retains the Bush-era old time religious overtones, comparable to a film like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Knowing really is only one step away from Christian dreck like the Left Behind series (that one step would be the casting of Kirk Cameron). That's really only a small objection. One can easily ignore or laugh away that stuff. The real crime of Knowing is that it's just plain dull most of the time. It takes forever to get anywhere. Nicolas Cage steps into that old canard that is the atheist who became so after his wife died (wanna bet he'll find his faith again by the end of the film?). He's a single father now, and a complete non-believer. But his belief in science is challenged when he comes into possession of a note from a time capsule. It is just a long string of numbers, but he starts to notice a pattern. Many of the numbers announce specific dates on which enormous disasters occurred. When he has it all figured out, he makes sure to experience the next couple of disasters firsthand. The final numbers on the note indicate the apocalypse that will take "everyone else". Intriguing enough, but the film is bogged down by endless expository dialogue and some ridiculously obscure, villain-ish people who stalk Cage's son (as well as a little girl they meet later on; not really worth getting into). The film does have one thing going for it: director Alex Proyas. The guy really seems to have had only one film in him, 1997's awesome Dark City. He wrote that; he didn't write this. But a crappy movie like this at least demonstrates he has some major talent. The film looks great all the way through. The two least boring parts of the film are the two disasters Cage encounters, one a plane crash and the other a subway car derailing, are two of the most vivid disasters ever caught on film. I object to both of them morally, because Proyas seems to delight way too much in people burning to death and being squished by the train, but they are definitely exciting and well done (the dream sequence with the flaming forest animals, not so much). All in all, it's a stupid, ugly movie, but at least it doesn't feel like it was made by an idiot, like X-Men Origins: Wolverine or Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen.