So You Want to Know What ‘Knowing’ Is All About

Posted by Dr. Cole Abaius (cole.abaius@filmschoolrejects.com) on March 2, 2009

Nic Cage running all serious-like.

We haven’t heard from our favorite spy ‘Patient Zero’ in a while, but he/she came out of the woodwork this morning with a quick, cursory review of Knowing. It’s got some MILD SPOILERS to it, but as you’ll see, Zero is fairly conscientious about what revealing details about the film would do to the viewing experience. So the major stuff he/she’s kept for himself/herself.

Hey Rejects,

I’ve been a little quiet lately but have recently managed to lay my eyes across the film everyone has been talking about – Knowing, starring Nic Cage. Insert rimshot. Cage catches a lot of flak, but he turns in some entertaining performances from time to time and this is one of them. Knowing is a strange film, but it’s a film with balls the size of planets. Searching the web, the secrecy has been kept fairly well about the details of the film and it would be a serious disservice to the experience for me to spill the beans wide. If anyone plans on going to see this, go in with as little knowledge as possible and you’ll be struck by the sheer scope and direction they take. What I will share is the following.

A disturbed girl buries a strange sequence of numbers in a time capsule. 50 years later, Nicolas Cage, a teacher who focuses in fairly advanced astrophysics and dabbles with theories like determination and cosmic randomness, finds a strange code in the numbers when his son brings the paper home. The numbers accurately predict when, where, and how many people will die in disasters, numbers range as low as the 30s to as high as 4000. The code is nearly complete, with only a few disasters left which Cage investigates and attempts to stop. The sequences are amazing. They’re the reason why I felt I had to share with you and your readers.

This is a disaster movie like we haven’t seen. It is violent. The disasters are harsh. Ones that have been revealed through trailers/clips – Airplane crash. This sequence is crazy good. Looks great, awesome fire, awesome plane crash, very violent. Subway crash – I don’t get disturbed easily, but this was pretty messed up. Lots of people die, get crushed, get ran over, blood splatters on windows. It is a violent disaster without being too gory. And things go downhill from there. I won’t give away more than that, but suffice to say the final disaster is a gigantic one.

WARNING! MAJOR, MAJOR SPOILER BELOW… SERIOUSLY.

This is a major spoiler that I will give, as you can sort of glean it from the poster – the final clue is “EE” – Everyone Else. The final disaster is the end of the world. Visually, the film is awesome. Acting, its pretty good, though there are a few definitive Cage moments. Plot wise, there are some WTF moments. Big WTF moments. There will definitely be a ton of people who *hate* this film. Critics will probably destroy it. But I can say without a doubt it has some fantastic disaster sequences and huge balls when it comes to going places you’d never expect. I was really impressed with the visuals and the religious themes that are dealt with. Some may gloss over the religious aspect and everything you can take from it, but it hit the spot for me. Knowing is an exciting disaster flick that will keep your attention and highlights great destructive sequences. At the end, you’ll either admire the film for what it does or hate it. Personally, I dug it. To each their own.

So it sounds like the flick has all the potential of a Roland Emmerich-style destroy-the-planet film with all the acting and dialog pitfalls of a, well, Roland Emmerich-style destroy-the-planet film. I can’t say I’ve been on the edge of my seat to see this one, and Nicholas Cage’s record is hit and miss, especially when it comes to action, but I’m not totally turned off at this point. And if the movie really has to offer some totally mind-blowing action sequences (and a minimum of scenes of Nic Cage running around (see above)), I could definitely be on board.

The film gets released March 20th, and the most recent trailer is…holy crap, it’s right here:

What do you think? Any interest in this at all?


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  • I'm sorry but Nick Cage just doesn't have it anymore and and movie his choices don't help the fact that he is not the greatest in the business.
  • Beem Me
    Fuck Nic Cage. That guy just straight up sucks.
  • Maybe his hair will explode, from the sound of this flick.
  • Even if the acting's crap, I still would like to see it. Seeing the end of the world? Cool! The only part of the trailer I wasn't sure about was the presence of "the whisperer people", or whatever the little girl called them. Can't it just be a disaster movie, without the spooky characters?
  • meh, comes out the same day as "I Love You, Man". i might check this out in a matinee or something. seems interesting enough...
  • I was as an extra in this film, and im looking forward to seeing it. The film does sound good on paper, but im not too sure they can pull it off. Train station scene is awesome. Was fun to be involved.
  • salmamassoud
    Ok, I will try to write my thoughts as fast as I can before they escape me as I have just watched this movie..
    I think it is trying to discuss the subject of determinism and randomness as he talked in the beginning of the movie.. It doesnt matter if the people turned out to be aliens or whatever, I think the message is: the universe is not random and everything is done in a determined way and you KNOWING the future changes nothing because everything is already pre-determined..
    It was only when Nicolas Cage submitted to this faith, that he was able to give up his son (he believed he would be with him in another world forever and ever) although in the beginning of the movie he didnt believe in God or heaven or anything..
    I did not read any reviews yet but I think in a nut shell this is my take out from the movie.

    The little girl writing and prediction paper is nothing, just a tool to give you the future on a piece of paper, it could have been anything else (a paper falling from the sky or him dreaming of dates), I believe the girl writing is not important to the message, she is just the tool the director/author used to give the future on a paper (because of you think about it, there is no purpose for the aliens for humans to know the dates..it is not like they believed humans can stop disasters from happening - So, the alien thing is totally irrelevant to the story. In fact, you can think of the aliens and space ship as God sending angels to save the children, but again it is irrelevant and does not serve the main message at all).
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