How can a movie seemingly so stupid be so thought-provoking?

Rating: 6/10 (21 March 2009)

On the surface, Knowing seems like a cross between many familiar movies. There are significant parallels with Signs, Next, Deep Impact, War of the Worlds, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Day the Earth Stood Still, and even Die Hard with a Vengeance.
But clearly, the filmmaker was trying to convey a much deeper message than most (any?) of those other movies - or at least was trying to raise a few questions. How much control do you have over your own fate? How far would you go to resist the inevitable? How would your beliefs change when faced with your imminent demise?
While the TV series Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles seems to be collapsing under the weight of trying to deal with these questions week after week, Knowing does a reasonably admirable job of holding up for 2 hours (though it does appear very shaky in a few spots).
This is definitely *not* the feel-good movie of the year, unless you count the very last minute and somehow forget the preceding 119.
This is a review for people who have already seen the movie. Stop now and go see it if you want to be provoked - I don't really recommend it for entertainment purposes.
Knowing is the story of an agnostic astrophysicist single father, Jon Kessler, who becomes involved, along with his son, in the unraveling of a numerological prophecy that identifies major disasters - three of them upcoming.
Jon starts off trying to fully understand the list, then tries to find out who is behind the list, then attempts to prevent the disasters.
While watching the movie, I was a little disappointed that it seemed to focus too much on Jon's attempt to stop the disasters at the expense of providing a coherent (at least for sci-fi) explanation for everything that was happening.
After a little reflection, I thought maybe that was the point - maybe the questions about how you'd react to these situations are more important than questions about how they come about. And the more I thought about this, the more I liked it. I also came up with a reasonable (to me) explanation for why things unfolded the way they did.
Knowing is as close to a positive portrayal of Christian eschatology as I would ever expect to see from a major Hollywood studio. This clearly has enraged the secular anti-theists, judging from some of the "Hated it" comments (atheism is passe - it seems these days it's insufficient to just be an unbeliever, you have to be against somebody who believes something). Their faux outrage is laughable considering that (a) the questions raised are universal, (b) the answer given in the film is still pretty watered-down and non-denominational,and (c) the opposite worldview is well represented in the other 99.9% of major motion pictures released.
Before getting to my explanation of the movie, I will now just mention a few irrelevant things I didn't like about it (here be spoilers arising incidentally):
Why do the angeliens (alien/angel hybrids) think that they can best relate to humans by looking Aryan/Nordic and acting like total a-holes?
Why do the angeliens need to drive a Ford Granada (or whatever it was) that hasn't been seen on an American road for 20 years? And to a lesser extent the same goes for the truck that hit Diana, but in these lean economic times I don't expect Hollywood to smash a brand new big rig.
Do subway trains in NYC really go that fast and have enough momentum to plow through cement/brick columns like they were sticks of butter? Even the ridiculous, bomb-powered train car in Die Hard 3 didn't go that far.
With all the deep philosophical and religious overtones of the movie, was it necessary to show me (a) every optional feature of the new Ford F-150 numerous times and (b) an electronic ad for Chevrolet being wiped out in a hail of fire and brimstone? Talk about your superliminal advertising!
Again, considering the subtext of the movie, some of the disaster scenes seemed oddly desensitizing to the value of human life (especially the subway scene, where people just kind of disappeared like so many bowling pins - the airliner crash was more horrific but seemed intentionally designed to evoke images of hellfire).
What's with all of the pet rocks?
Finally, why did the angeliens go to all that trouble with the list and everything when they could have just snatched any kids they wanted?
And here is my answer, which when I realized it, made me appreciate the movie in retrospect: It was a test of faith - the angeliens wanted Jon to give up his son willingly and the only way he would do that is if they convinced him they had powers beyond his understanding. This also reconciled him to his father and (presumably) saved his eternal soul.
This is not a new story, of course, but it is obviously new to many people, and offensive, and provocative. Which makes Knowing a more significant film than it would seem on the surface.