Knowing

Lead actors: Nicholas Cage, Chandler Canterbury

Director: Alex Proyas

Since this movie was starring Nicholas Cage and is sci-fi, I had high expectations on it. The movie was a big disappointment; I wonder why I thought of watching it in the first place.

Throw in a bunch of characters, including some children of course (hey what’s sci-fi without at least one kid?), a freaky girl, a mysterious letter, some symbolism, a few talisman stones, a couple of disasters, a group of aliens and a horde of people to run around in the background screaming and there you have it- Knowing.

The movie begins in an elementary school in 1959 where a class of students is asked to submit their drawings, to be locked in a time capsule, scheduled to be opened 50 years later. One freaky-looking girl fills up her sheet with random numbers instead of drawing something.

50 years later, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), son of a professor at MIT, John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), is studying in the same elementary school. At the 50th anniversary celebrations, the time capsule is opened and the drawings are distributed to the children and guess what, the sheet with the random numbers ends up with Caleb. John sees the paper, does some searching on the internet and voila - an interesting revelation - the sheet contains some startling info!

This was when I thought, ‘Awesome!’ and readied myself for some excitement! And then, and then - the movie falls flat on its face.

It’s so distressing that the concept which had a great potential was made in such a pathetic way. The characterizations are abysmal- I didn’t understand what the characters were up to and why, and after sometime I stopped caring about what they were doing and continued to watch the movie just because it involved nothing more than just staring at the screen with an absolutely blank head and of course because I had no other work :D. Nicholas Cage did not quite fit well in the role of a confused professor.

I felt that this movie was a hotchpotch of several other movies and tried to show too many things in the same story. The aliens are too similar to the ones in A.I., the freaky 1959 school girl resembled any freaky girl in a typical horror film, the portrayal of the feelings of the characters at tense moments, a-la Signs, fails miserably and some scenes remind you of those from disaster movies. With a running time of 2 hours, this movie is an ordeal to sit through- if you use your head that is. The climax is no less absurd.

The only strong point of the movie is its visual effects, though not many. Some scenes were aesthetically shot.

Verdict: Can be watched once for its visual effects.
My Rating: 1.5/5