KNOWING

Starring:
Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne, Lara Robinson, Nadia Townsend and Phil Beckman

Director:
Alex Proyas

Running Time:
121 mins

Out to buy on Blu-Ray/DVD 01/08/09

"I can't do anything to stop it"

Fifty years ago, the children of an elementary school in Boston placed pictures what they thought the future would look like into a time capsule but one little girl put something in there that she knew was going to come true. Now the capsule has been opened by the current pupils of the school but when Professor John Koestler’s (Cage) son Caleb (Canterbury) receives his picture, it is not a drawing of a rocket ship or a robot but a page filled with numbers. When his father examines it he makes the shocking realisation that these are not just numbers but the dates of disaster that has happened in the last fifty years and the exact number of people that died. Even more shocking is that John realises that there are three left and only he can stop them.

Predicting an apocalypse is nothing new for Hollywood but with the world about to come to an end, would you like Nicolas Cage to be the scientist to save us?

Since the heyday of the 50s B-Movie, filmmakers have loved destroying the world. Whether it be via an alien threat, a series of natural disasters, a new ice age, nuclear weapons or the rise of manmade machines, the world has ended in numerous ways on the big screen on plenty of occasions. Now the director behind ‘The Crow’, ‘Dark City’ and ‘I, Robot’, Alex Proyas gets his chance to blow some cities up. Unfortunately we have to sit through one of the most awful science fiction plots to before we see the destruction.

To truly understand why this film is so absolutely dreadful, the major twist in the plot has to be spoilt because this is the cornerstone to the reasoning behind this judgement. While the premise is one that should successfully mix science, religion and fantasy, it is the final revelation that makes this movie just truly dismal. Firstly we have to believe that Nicolas Cage could be a scientist, which is a large leap of faith to take in the first place. Secondly we have to believe that a young girl could write a series of numbers that conveniently fills a piece of A4 paper back fifty years earlier, place that paper in a time capsule only to be given to Nicolas Cage’s son when it is opened fifty years later. Thirdly we have to believe that a drunk Cage would then figure out that the numbers are actually dates of manmade and natural disasters, the amount of people who died and the coordinates of the places where they took place in chronological order over the last fifty years and there are three sets numbers left. He then, of course, tries to stop these but a plane crash and train wreck later, he realises that the last number sequence means the world is going to be destroyed. This sound like it should be a good armageddon-type movie but it is turned into something completely different in the final act.

With the world coming to an inevitable end and even Nicolas Cage not having the power to save us, it is left to the film’s big twist to save the essence of the human race and that twist is Aliens. While this could have been all well and good but its execution is haphazard and could even be interpreted as racist. The problem is that the alien race has chosen children with psychic abilities to save, taking them in pairs and then transporting them to a new world but then they just leave them there, with no food, shelter or adult supervision. The aliens themselves are first portrayed as blond haired, blue-eyed creepy stalkers but then transform into angelic light beings who entice the children to come with them onto their ships by giving them white bunny rabbits. With the aliens originally looking like the Aryan race, the physical ideal of Hitler’s Nazi Germany, the giving of white rabbits, the taking of white children and the complete lack of characters from any ethnic background, it wouldn’t be hard to say that the aliens were being racially selective as well.

With a completely dreadful and controversial finale, having to think that Nicolas Cage is a scientist, all the best visual effects moments been in the trailer and an overall plot that will make you cringe throughout, ‘Knowing’ is one of the worst science fiction films to come out in a very long time. This is big budget filmmaking at its most abysmal.

PICTURE & SOUND

Presented in Widescreen 1.85:1 Anamorphic with a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, the transfer is good.

BONUS FEATURES

Audio Commentary with director Alex Proyas
Recording in an interview style, this track gives the director the chance to talk about key scenes in the movie and talk passionately about a movie he unsurprisingly believes in. The Q&A approach works and makes for a much chattier and informative track.

Knowing All: The Making of a Futuristic Thriller (12.35 mins)
Director Alex Proyas, producers Jason Blumenthal and Topher Dow, executive producer Stephen Jones, production designer Steven Jones-Evans and starts Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury and Lara Robinson talk about bringing the apocalyptic story to the big screen. With insights into the story, the plane crash and train derailment, this is not a bad featurette.

Visions of the Apocalypse (17.14 mins)
Scientists and authors come together to talk about the religious, cultural and scientific predictions for the end of the world.

Theatrical Trailer and TV Spots
Watch the promotional material for the movie that previewed the movie online, in cinemas and on TV

Previews
Trailers for ‘Sex Drive’, ‘Franklyn’ and ‘Bronson’

OVERALL

The DVD treatment for ‘Knowing’ is one that fans (if there are any) should enjoy. The two featurettes are good and the commentary track is fine. This still doesn’t distract from the fact that the movie is awful however.

DVD


The Usher Home | Hush, Hush... | The Big Story | The Usher Speaks

Stuck @ Home | Coming Soon | Links | Contact the Usher

2009