682. Knowing (2009)

Starring: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury

Director: Alex Proyas

Running Time: 121 mins

Knowing is an American film about a university professor who discovers a mysterious vision of the future written by a little girl in 1959, which he discovers to be a series of dates that tell of three disasters in the near future that threaten the whole world.

Well, while this is a, fortunately, a bit of a step away from your generic, cheesy mystery-thriller, with a lot more grim and dark themes and images, it falls down with some disappointing and overly predictable twists and plot lines, coupled with some very poor central performances.

And that’s where I’m going to start, with the performances. Rose Byrne’s character was extremely shallow, and it gave her little to do in her performance, making her not particularly interesting, nor irritating to watch.

However, Nicolas Cage was a completely different kettle of fish. His character is meant to have some strong emotional turmoil that is meant to really carry a significant part of the film, however being Nicolas Cage, his performance and strong emotional points in this film are more laughable than anything.

Also, I was quite irritated by the development of this film’s plot. The opening stages are incredibly interesting and mysterious, and until you get the big reveal of what’s actually going on in the story, I was properly intrigued in the plot.

However, once you get into the main bulk of the story, it all seems to fall apart. Rather than concentrating on developing tension and mystery, it moves much further towards an action-oriented plot, ultimately becoming a display of various disasters with very little substance in between to keep you interested in the story.

Also, it all ends in the most bizarre way possible. Yes, I admit that I didn’t see it coming, and I was somewhat impressed by that, however the end was actually quite unsatisfying, with an oddly mixed atmosphere that seemed to reference films like The Fountain and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind all in one.

Despite all that disappointment in terms of the story, the one saving grace of this film is the fact that it has a lot more brutal and grim atmosphere than you’d expect from this sort of big-money blockbuster, and the more unpredictable and mysterious air that it brings across in the early stages of the film are a lot more intriguing, so that’s why it gets a 6.9.