Phil Mercer

Thursday, March 26, 2009

Knowing (Cert 15)

 

SPOILER WARNING: Some plot details revealed later on in the review!
Nicolas Cage is back in a SciFi - Horror - Disaster epic directed by Alex Proyas (i Robot).

We start 50 years ago with a newly opened elementary school in Lexington, USA. The children celebrate by creating a time capsule and putting in pictures they have drawn of what they think life will be like in half a century. The quiet and reserved little Lucinda Embry is a bit different however and rather than a picture... she creates a long list of seemingly random numbers.

Back in the present day and John Koestler (Nicolas Cage) is getting over the sudden death of his wife and trying to be a good father to his partially deaf son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). When he attends a special school ceremony to open the time capsule left 50 years before, he gets a strange surprise. Caleb opens Lucinda Embry's bizarre sheet of paper covered in numbers. At the same time his hearing aid starts whispering at him.

Back at home and after a night on the gin, Koestler notices a pattern in amongst the numbers. It seems that there is a sequence that lists the date and location of a disaster and the number of people who die.

But what will he chose to do with this information, especially as there are still some disasters to come if the numbers are to be believed. And what is it with the strange men that seem to be following him and his son around?

For the first two thirds of this film Proyas does a great job of building tension and confusion. Some of it is very obvious (like the soundtrack) but in the most part, the feeling of impending doom is well played. I for one was getting beginning to think I may be in for a few sleepless nights with the lights on the landing left on. But we soon find ourselves in the predictable world of aliens interfering with life on earth. I wouldn't have minded so much if it had been done in a new way, but we have seen it all before, whether it be the expected deaths of the Final Destination films, or the Close Encounters / ET style ending. Even the aliens look like everything we expect aliens to be!

The film is very skillfully shot with stunning (and horrific) effects and it is well acted (Canterbury will be someone to watch in the future) but all in all it lacked the truly strong story line that we found in films like I Robot.

4/10
http://knowing-themovie.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowing_(film)

Labels: Film Movie

# posted by Phil @ 10:51 pm

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