Movie Review: Knowing

It's not that the movie wasn't great, "Nothing to write home about", "I've seen better", or "It's a one-timer". In fact, had it been any of the above I probably wouldn't be wasting precious megabytes writing about it. The movie was in fact a fantastic suckfest. A giant poo on the glorious peaks of Summit Entertainment. A triumphant belly flop into the pool of mediocrity.

Am I being too harsh? I don't think so. The movie is uniquely ridiculous. There is no redeeming element.

The plot is absurd and stupid. Summary: Nicolas Cage - and his weird pervert hair - is a lonely and troubled widower raising a very cute child who the writer felt needed a hearing aid, even though he hears well without it and it's not instrumental in any way to the story. He's a good father, but drinks like he's trying to prove something. Oh, he's also a professor at MIT. His son's elementary school digs up a time capsule from 50 years earlier and one of the sealed envelopes contains a series of numbers which he later discovers are dates to major disasters in the world in the last 50 years, as well as the number of people killed in them, written by one of the kids in the class (50 yrs ago). So far, so good.

There are creepy albino stalkers who look like they fell out of the Matrix and who don't speak but just stare at the children and whisper in a really creepy way. The movie actually calls them the "whisper people". There's eerie music, visions, scurrying about frantically, major catastrophes, etc. The movie has a forced spooky element for a while.

Then, out of nowhere the story takes a seriously wrong turn and develops into new age vomit. It's like it was written by either 1 person with multiple personalities, or several people with 1 personality each. It's loco. There is an end-of-the-world warning, no way to save mankind, unnecessary death of a mother, kids abandoning parents to go on a space ship with the creepy whisper and stare people who turn out to be beings of energy from another planet with energy wings...so they're alien energy angels? The whole scene is messed up. They take rabbits with them, and I imagine - although it's not mentioned - samples of species from the planet. Then the kids take off in a Fortress of Solitude looking space ship with the energy fairies and the world burns up in a solar flare along with Nicolas Cage and everyone else.

Later it shows the 2 kids on the planet they were deposited in by the Fortress of Solitude alien energy angel fairies running towards what looks like the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil - eh? Question: isn't it dangerous to have 2 kids all alone on a bogus planet that looks like coral reefs in pastel colors along with a bunch of sample species? Come lunch time it won't look like some old washed up hippie's tripped out idea of heaven anymore, will it?

I'm thinking that before I set aside good dish washing and floor scrubbing time to watch anything written by Ryne Douglas Pearson (yep, I researched the writer so I could be advised for next time and to warn all of you - you're welcome), I'm going to make sure there are no urgent diapers that need to be changed, or garbage to be taken out, roads to asphalt in 40°C heat - and I suggest you do the same. While we're at it, let's throw in the director as well, Alex Proyas. What was he thinking?

This brings me to the most important question of all: How does one go about getting a massive flop like Knowing made into a movie, convince a director, studio, and top actors to sign on, and most of all, investors to put in money? $50 million, to be exact. Either this is a case like "The Producers" where they needed a flop for tax purposes, or someone sold their soul to the Satan (you know what I think). This is not the work of intelligent or enlightened minds. This is the work of really weird people who drink "special" tea and eat "special" mushrooms, followed by "special" acid trips -- or just your regular garden variety crazies.

Bottom line: DON'T.