Knowing.

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2010)

I'm not really sure why this movie has gotten such poor reviews. I found this movie to be, on the whole, solid and a bit of fun - certainly not stellar, but certainly not awful either.
It had an interesting, albeit unrealistic, premise which is what initially drew me in. A creepy little girl writes down a bunch of numbers which correspond to disasters over the next 50 years. Nicolas Cage comes by and finds it, notices the pattern, and starts running around like a madman just like anyone would do. Eventually, the world gets roasted by the sun and everyone dies except for some kids. With a little help from the willing suspension of disbelief, sure, I'll buy it. So what was it about this movie that caused so much hatred to emanate from the people on this site? Let's see if I can work it out.
Starting with the negative: I will be the first to say that the ending was horrendous. It made little sense, didn't tie anything together, and was kind of a Deus Ex Machina to make people think "Well, at least the kids were saved." Awful. (Also, what was the deal with the rabbits?)
Continuing with the biggest positive: the airplane crash was tremendous. It was gripping and by far the best scene in the movie; strangely understated owing to the fact that there was no background music, save for screams and explosions. The continuous camera shot was a nice touch as well. Continuing in that line of thought: I couldn't help but notice a couple of comments floating around that said the airplane crash was terrible, and that people wouldn't get up and try to run away. Wait, what? People wouldn't try and run away from a freaking airplane crash? Why the hell not? There are explosions and debris flying through the air, and you expect the people to just give up hope, sit down where they are and wait to be taken? No, I'm sorry, but people would get up and try to save themselves. I really don't see why they wouldn't.
Finally, the rest of the movie was a bit of fun. I had a good time watching it, and it made a valiant effort to make some sense out of everything. It failed a few times, but at least it tried.
In all, Knowing earns a 7.8 out of 10.