Knowing
What happens when the numbers run out?
In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule but one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead. Fifty years later, Professor John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts every major disaster of the past 50 years. As John further unravels the document's chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events - the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve John and his son.
Member Reviews
Strange Twist - wenderella
I liked 3/4 of this movie...then it took a strange twist that I just couldn't get on board with and it ruined the whole thing for me...kinda like From Dusk Til Dawn (remember that one?). I'm not sure where it was going with the sub-plot but I think the writer got their sci-fi/religious wires crossed.It was OK, buuuuuuut... - XsilverboltX
...get ready for a movie that kinda... just... doesn't go where it needed to.
It's pretty and all, and a great suspense, but it feels like it went through one too many rewrites to accomodate too many opinions on how it should be and kinda flaked out.
I mean, I was cool with "angels" intervening... but suddenly finding out that "DUDE! IT'S ALIENS AND IT'S ALWAYS BEEN ALIENS!" was... bummer. Pretty aliens, for sure, but dang, what a let down.
Add to that the fact that the movie should have ended 20 minutes before it did (like, at that nice fade to black after Jon collapses once his son leaves, where the emotions are so high, and you're left with the possibility of figuring the ending for yourself, which would have been more in the lines of "Knowing", which is about faith, after all) and that it started as a really interesting thriller suspense that finished into YET ANOTHER SPECTACULARLY APOCALYPTIC MOVIE and you're looking at some serious plot failures along the way.
Casting and acting is fantastic though. Those kids are GREAT, and it was nice to see a movie with only ONE superstar face. All the others' talent comes out on top then, since you're not distracted by what their super star status would do to your perceptions of the movie, allowing them to really fade behind the character they portray, and along the way, making you forget that you're sitting through yet another 2 hours of Nicolas Cage's neutral passive face doing its best "dull surprise" impression.
Really, it's good, but don't watch this with too many expectations. It's just yet another one of those movies that had a good budget but crapped out along the way.An Interesting Film with Glaring Flaws - jmunds
I did not expect this film to be so thought provoking. I went in expecting the normal, Nick Cage, "oh I am eccentirc so now lets save the world with wierd hand movements and odd vocal intonation." But what I got was a mesmerizing, odd religious alleghory. But as much as it stimulates the left brain, it also makes one at times laugh, to the point of mocking. The dialogue is at times rough, and the effects though impressive at times, can sometimes run pass as a moving painting and be very surface and not as arresting as I'd like.
Cage, is good here, not too annoying, but his performance is hampered not by his eccentricity and lack of involvement, but from the actual dialogue. He alternates between depression and frenetic energy because thats all the script calls for.
I give the really liked it tab, for the interesting suggestions of religious orgins, and the use of Beethoven's 7th, mvt 3 which at times felt like a visual symphony.
In short, this should not be in your top ten, but if you have too hours to kill, and enjoy seeing films that you know are mediocre to find the one fantastic part of the film.
P.S. I think Cage did this film, because of its similarities to the orgins of Superman.
Member Reviews
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Strange Twist - wenderella
I liked 3/4 of this movie...then it took a strange twist that I just couldn't get on board with and it ruined the whole thing for me...kinda like From Dusk Til Dawn (remember that one?). I'm not sure where it was going with the sub-plot but I think the writer ...It was OK, buuuuuuut... - XsilverboltX
...get ready for a movie that kinda... just... doesn't go where it needed to.
It's pretty and all, and a great suspense, but it feels like it went through one too many rewrites to accomodate too many opinions on how it should be and kinda flaked out.
I ...An Interesting Film with Glaring Flaws - jmunds
I did not expect this film to be so thought provoking. I went in expecting the normal, Nick Cage, "oh I am eccentirc so now lets save the world with wierd hand movements and odd vocal intonation." But what I got was a mesmerizing, odd religious alleghory. ...