Knowing (Summit Entertainment)
Apocalypse Now
Nicolas Cage may not always pick the best scripts but most of the time he picks interesting ones. His latest film Knowing wont win any awards for artistic merit but it will find an audience ready for its suspense and entertainment value. No one will be nodding off during the length of time it gets this movie to go from start to finish.
John Koestler (Cage) is a professor at MIT. His son is a grammar school student. His wife is deceased. One day a time capsule is opened at his sons school. The capsule was placed in the ground in 1959. Now fifty years later it is ready to be uncovered.
Messages and pictures from the students of 1959 were placed in the capsule and are now distributed to the new students. Johns son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) gets one prepared by Lucinda Embry. It is a series of numbers and nothing else. Caleb sho9ws it to his father who is intrigued by it.
John studies these numbers and figures out they are numeric messages describing tragedies which have occurred and are to occur. Desperately he seeks to find Lucinda, but only manages to find her daughter Diana (Rose Byrne). John feels sure that he and Diana must work together to prevent a horrible tragedy from occurring.
This movie moves at breakneck speed. One horrific event occurs after another and the special effects team for this film shows them in amazing detail. You will believe these occurrences are actually happening.
Cage is his unique self once again in this film. He has a creepy presence that actually grows on you as the film progresses. Byrne is one of the stars of the TV series Damages and shows in this film that she is a very capable actress.. Canterbury shows precocious talent as Cages son.
The film is rated PG-13 for violence.
There are moments in the movie that are never explained and some of the occurrences are totally over the top. You can either pick all of this apart or go with the flow and have a good time.
The success of the film will depend on how many people accept the message of the film and its surprising ending. With this movie word of mouth will either make or break it.
I scored Knowing a knowledgeable 6 out of 10.
