DVD Review: Knowing: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne: Movies & TV
DVD Review: Knowing: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne: Movies & TV
Amazon.com
Nicolas Cage stars in this largely unsatisfying science-fiction tale that begins as a taut and spooky story concerning psychic legacies and ends up falling back on Steven Spielberg’s old, cosmic playbook for default explanations about weird phenomena. Cage stars as astrophysicist and widower John Koestler, whose young son attends a school where a 50-year-old time capsule is dug up and opened. Koestler’s son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), is given an envelope from the capsule containing a sheet of paper inscribed with seemingly-random numbers. Koestler interprets groupings of the numbers as prophesies (made in 1959) of disasters leading up to a globally catastrophic event late in 2009. Moreover, some of the later tragedies involve him or members of his family, suggesting the paper was meant to fall into his and Caleb’s hands. That’s not the only freaky thing drawing father and son in a direction they really don’t want to go. Among other things, a quartet of mute strangers keeps showing up with a powerful interest in Caleb’s whereabouts, and the daughter and granddaughter of the little girl who originally scribbled those numbers in 1959 are under the shadow of a separate prediction of doom. Everything goes swimmingly until it’s time for director Alex Proyas (The Crow) to begin tying up all the strings, and cliches start falling like rain. On the plus side, Knowing includes a couple of breathtaking scenes of calamity, the most horrifying (and realistic) of which is a jet crash the likes of which has never been committed to film. –Tom Keogh
Product Description
A college professor (Nicolas Cage) opens a time capsule that has been dug up at his son s elementary school. In it are some chilling accurate predictions of disasters… when, where, and how many will die. Most of these events must uncover the details of the next disasters in hopes of preventing them. If he fails, who knows how many will die?
Strictly By the Numbers,
By Chris Pandolfi (Los Angeles, CA) -
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Knowing [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
“Knowing” achieves a level of greatness so few science fiction films ever achieve. It’s not merely an engaging mystery–it’s a deeply thought-provoking fable that’s just as frightening as it is intelligent, and it ultimately makes a statement so profound that I was left completely awestruck. I don’t often have an experience like that at the movies, and for that, I’m indebted to director Alex Proyas and writers Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden, Stiles White, and Stewart Hazeldine. They’ve successfully crafted one of the year’s most stimulating films, taking the audience on a suspenseful, emotional, and ultimately (albeit unconventionally) redemptive journey that poses interesting questions on the nature of things. A movie like this could have easily placed technical achievement over character development, and thankfully, that didn’t happen; we care just as much about the people as we do about the spectacular special effects.
The story begins in 1959, when an elementary school class is asked to draw pictures of what the world will look like fifty years later. What they draw will be put into a time capsule, which will be reopened in the year 2009. Rather than draw a picture, the quiet, disturbed Lucinda Embry (Lara Robinson) writes out a series of numbers on both the front and the back of a piece of paper.
Flash forward to the present day. We meet an MIT astrophysics professor named John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), who teaches his students that two theories on the nature of the universe have been proposed. On the one side, we have the determinist view, which states that everything happens as the result of a predetermined–and more importantly, a predictable–sequence of events. How, for example, could the Earth be located at just the correct distance from the sun to sustain life? On the other side, we have the random view, which states that absolutely nothing can be predicted, that life, the universe, and everything happened as the result of cosmic coincidences. What exactly does Koestler believe? Here are some clues: His wife died some years earlier, and he’s openly stated that the existence of Heaven can’t be proven.
As it so happens, John’s young son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), goes to the same school that Lucinda Embry attended fifty years earlier. The day comes when the time capsule is unearthed and opened, and lo and behold, Caleb gets the envelope containing the numbers Lucinda wrote. He then takes it home, thinking the numbers might mean something. John initially thinks nothing of it … until he places his wet glass of hard liquor on it and leaves a ring. Was it a predetermined act or a random act that led to a ring being formed around very specific numbers (the significance of which I won’t reveal)? More important, was it a predetermined act or a random act that landed Caleb with the page of numbers in the first place? While I won’t say what the numbers refer to (and this is in spite of the many ads that give plenty of hints), I will say that what John discovers changes him forever, forcing to consider ideas he never thought he would be able to consider.
To describe more of the plot would do you and the film a great disservice. Much of the story thrives on an engrossing mystery that only gets more unsettling with every passing scene. Visual motifs, such as shiny black pebbles, burning landscapes, and silhouetted figures emerging from the forest add great psychological weight. The same can be said for a house so old and ramshackle that, under different circumstances, it would be mistaken as being haunted. It ties in wonderfully with the psychological states of the characters inhabiting it. John is a solemn, broken man, estranged from his father, often detached from his son, occasionally dependent on a bottle of alcohol to drown his sorrows. Caleb is expectedly precocious but surprisingly fragile, always yearning for that which has been lost somewhere along the way. For the first time in a great while, we have a story that can actually support such characters; were it not for the awesome nature of the final fifteen minutes, John and Caleb would be nothing more than melodramatic clichés.
There are two more characters of great importance. One is Lucinda Embry’s daughter, Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne), who enters John’s life in a way that reaffirms the notion that nothing happens randomly. The other is Diana’s daughter, Abby (also played by Lara Robinson), who, like Caleb, has been contacted by the creepy silhouetted figures, eventually called the Whispering People. Watch John and Diana as they search through Lucinda’s abandoned home in the middle of the woods–the fear they express is disturbingly convincing.
Like last summer’s “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” “Knowing” is one of the best cinematic surprises of recent memory, a meaningful and absorbing allegory made with intention of challenging the audience in matters of spirituality. It’s difficult to say whether or not this film takes a religious stance; that would depend on your own view of the nature of the universe. There are, however, a number of religious implications, the least subtle of which is revealed in the final shot. This might account for some early reviews, where words like “overwrought” and “preposterous” came up. From my perspective, those who feel that way have failed to look any deeper than what was presented in the ads, which only scratched the surface. Contrary to what trailers and TV spots have been promising, this is not your average science fiction thriller. Serious time, effort, and thought went into “Knowing,” one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year.
KNOWING…That You Can’t Stop The End,
By Erik North (San Gabriel, CA USA) -
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)
This review is from: Knowing [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
While it may not really be the most credible science fiction film ever made, or even the best of its own sub-genre, the “End Of The World”, KNOWING is a long way away from such incredible tripe as BATTLEFIELD EARTH or the recent (and thoroughly unnecessary) remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL. Its storyline isn’t always credible, but it worked for me just the same.
The premise of KNOWING, in that an MIT professor played by Nicolas Cage, has discovered a parchment hidden in a time capsule at his son’s school that was buried there fifty years ago with a random set of numbers that foretold of horrors that would befall us between 1959 and 2009, and the ultimate horror that would eliminate the human race, is a brilliant and even frightening one. It’s especially so when he learns what the first sequence of numbers means–911012996, meaning of course the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, which killed 2,996 people.
Indeed, this is a film that involves both science and religion, which often seem to bump into one another both in the reel world and the real world. Cage gets involved because one of the disasters told in that parchment was an apartment fire in Phoenix that killed his wife and eighty others a few years back; and when he comes into contact with the daughter (Rose Byrne) of the disturbed schoolgirl who wrote the parchment, he desperately tries to protect himself, her, and their two children (Chandler Canterbury; Lara Robinson). In the end, however, knowing what the numbers on the parchment mean can only lead to the tragic conclusion that the film gets to eventually–that The End can’t be stopped.
Despite some occasionally lame dialogue in the screenplay, KNOWING elicits a fair number of scares and plenty of suspense as it goes step by step towards The End. Its blend of science fiction and Biblical prophecy was, for me, rather interesting, because it did not totally dismiss the prophecy aspect out of hand (which so many on the far-right lunatic fringe say Hollywood has done for the longest time), and yet it also avoided the ham-fisted soapbox shouting of the “Left Behind” series. The special effects here, not surprisingly, are quite good, especially the climactic destruction of the world and its rebirth elsewhere in the universe; and the music score by Marco Beltrami interestingly appropriates the ominous Allegretto movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 at a couple of points in the film as a musical prelude to the inevitable.
KNOWING probably won’t go down as being among the best science fiction films ever, let alone of the End Of The World variety, but it works well enough, and it has provoked a lot of consideration about the impact of science and religion on the future of humanity.
A Film So Profound I Started Sobbing!,
By Happy Camper (Baltimore, Maryland USA) -
This review is from: Knowing [Theatrical Release] (Theatrical Release)
What a deeply spiritual film about love and trust! Love between parents and children, and the mercy extraterrestrial aliens have for human beings. It’s also about trust in a Supreme Being (God). My favorite line in the entire movie is: “This (Life) is not the end! and the reply,”I know!” It’s also about the ultimately ridiculous dichotomy between spirituality and science! What a brilliant and cathartic story!
One must be patient while watching Knowing. This is NOT a film for children, the faint of heart or someone looking for a good time! The story does not come together until the very end. There’s also a lot of hysterics! How would any us react in such a desperate situation? Knowing, is about making personal sacrifices! It’s not a story to make the viewer feel comfortable!
I could have done without the graphic violence of one disaster after another! But Knowing makes a point of not taking this life for granted and that one should live in the present as much as possible! The other obvious message is that loving relationships between people is the most important part of being human!
I was reminded while watching Knowing of my Astronomy professor, who said, “Human beings would be like ants to an advanced extraterrestrial civilization. Why would they care about us?” Maybe they would care about us! Knowing makes its case that it’s certainly plausible!
Thank you Hollywood for making a mature Science Fiction film for an adult audience! It took a lot of courage to make a movie so deep in a world so crass and shallow!
SeeCreating Harmonious Relationships: A Practical Guide to the Power of True Empathy and The Empathy Gap: Building Bridges to the Good Life and the Good Society
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