Knowing (2009)

Knowing (2009)

Written by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, & Stiles White, based on Pearson’s book.

Directed by Alex Proyas

            

            This one was a mixed bag of different sci-fi norms, with one big unique twist thrown in at the end.  Was it original? Yes.  Was it good? Meh.

            Knowing was directed by Alex Proyas, one of my favorite sci-fi auteurs.  Nicholas Cage is the lead.  And it’s about the end of the world.  How can a movie like this go wrong?  Well, easily, apparantly.  Alex Proyas is pretty amazing.  The Crow, Dark City, these are classics.  They were done on lower budgets, with lesser-known actors (at the time), and they have huge cult followings.  But when Proyas tries to go big-budget and do a studio flick, he fails.  See I, Robot and, now, Knowing for examples.  It’s just something about trying to conform his film to appeal to the masses that takes away from it.  Also, it’s quite possible that Cage is at fault here.  When I was a kid, Nicholas Cage was the shit.  He’s won an Academy Award.  He was in Con Air, Face/Off, Raising Arizona, Snake Eyes, Wild at Heart, and Trapped in Paradise.  I mean, c’mon! Those flicks were bad freaking ass!  Somewhere along the way, Cage lost his sanity.  And his hair.  And what we’re left with is this.

            Knowing started out great.  You see, in 1959, a bunch of kids at a little elementary school in Massachusetts put some pictures and some letters into a time capsule, the whole town vowing not to open for another 50 years, conveniently, in 2009.  There’s a scary ass little girl (SALG) that has some sort of problem, and on her paper she writes down numbers furiously until her bitch of a teacher rips it out of her hand.  During the burial of the time capsule the SALG goes missing.  She is soon found in a janitor’s closet, furiously scratching at the door with her fingernails until she bleeds.  Jump forward to 2009.  Nicholas Cage is an astrophysicist (this is where the movie loses all believability) with an adorable son.  Also, he’s an alchoholic (and now I believe again!).  When the time capsule is taken out of the ground, Cage’s kid gets the letter from SALG.  Nicholas Cage finds it and immediately becomes obsessed with the numbers, convinced they have meaning.  Perhaps not coincidentally, the numbers coincide with most disasters since 1959, predicting the dates, places, and number of people that will perish.  Cage sees that there is a disaster predicted for tomorrow, and he sets out on a mission to prevent it.  Because one person can prevent the death of 81 people.  This leads to the best scene of the movie, which you may have seen part of in the trailers, a scene which the rest of the flick unfortunately fails to live up to.  It involves a plane crash.  It’s all done in a 2 and a half minute continuous shot with Nicholas Cage walking through the wreckage of the plane looking for survivors.  It’s haunting and gruesome, and awesome.  However, the next action scene isn’t for another 20 minutes, and it’s a looooong wait.  He finds the descendants of SALG – played by Rose Byrne (from Sunshine, one of my favorite sci-fi flicks) and the same child actress that played the original SALG!!!  Ahhhh, too many Scary Ass Little Girls for me!!!

            As you can see, the movie’s a little convoluted, and if you’re not following, you’ll probably get a little lost.  Also, I haven’t mentioned the last 45 minutes of the movie because there is a pretty ridiculous twist that you won’t see coming, and it’s pretty corny.  You see, this movie would have been great if they hadn’t gone with Nicholas Cage, and if it wasn’t directed towards the non sci-fi lover.  Nicholas Cage’s hairpiece and over-acting simply take you out of the flick.  Most of his dialogue is laughable and his crazy eyes are gut-bustingly hilarious.  He hasn’t done a serious flick since Leaving Las Vegas for christ’s sake!  Everything with him is over the top, and it doesn’t work here.  It might work great in Bad Lieutenant or Kick Ass, but it most certainly does not work here.  Just as well, don’t make us think that the flick is about a world-ending disaster, because it most certainly was not.  It was about the bond between mother and daughter/ father and son.  That’s why you threw that “tear moment” in at the end.  Because we were supposed to care about Cage and his kid, but how can we care about Cage when he’s constantly putting his kid in harm’s way, despite everybody telling him not to?  And what about Rose Byrne and her SALG? Why were we supposed to care if they died or not?  I don’t get it.

            This flick did have good parts.  The cinematography was pretty spectacular.  The action sequences were intense as hell.  The music was foreboding and creepy and perfect.  That plane crash was fucking sick!  But there was enough about it that was just “meh” to make me not care about it.  If I had to rate it, I’d give it 2 ½ stars out of 5.  This flick was mediocre all the way through.