Movie Review: Knowing (“…and ‘knowing’ is half the battle…”)

You know a movie won’t be perfect if it’s named after one of Estee Lauder’s perfumes. But it’s a "event" movie, it had Nic Cage, and we wanted ANY movie…

In “Knowing,” Nic Cage stars as a widower astronomer dad to a kid who got an envelope from school containing an odd series of numbers. Lo and behold, a well-placed ring of coffee suddenly makes ole’ Nic a numerology genius. And in one night, he figures out that the crazy-ass numbers refer to a truckload of disasters and their respective casualty counts.

SPOILER WARNING!

Turns out, Nic’s kid (and another kid) are schizzos who hear voices from a bunch of guys whose silhouettes eerily resemble a younger version of U2. It is at this point that we conclude that in Hollywood, ALL angels wear black trenchcoats and look like rock stars on a cigarette break. It has apparently been decided by the guys in U2, Jr. that the world will *gasp!* go down in flames and end. Now I know why we no longer see hippies running around town with placards that say “THE END IS NIGH.” They’re now making movies in Hollywood. A lot of them.

After being bombarded with comic book movies and happy-ever-after rom-coms, it was refreshing to see a movie where one does not have any preconception of what the ending could/would be.

And while the “two kids (who happen to be both American and white) have been abducted by aliens and brought back to help repopulate the earth with more white Americans” ending seemed too Spielberg-ish, I suppose it was necessary considering how bloody depressing the rest of the movie was.

What’s funny is how the movie can’t seem to make up its mind as to whether it was a psychological thriller, a supernatural horror movie, or a sci-fi disaster flick. At least you know that when there’s Nic Cage, there’s almost always an earnest performance, if not a totally earnest story.

Must be those St. Bernard eyes of his.

I mean, a huge, muscled, balding Caucasian guy who can break scrawny Asian guy into steak slices, who has a look on his face that says “don’t hurt me” has GOT to be likable, right?

"...we no longer see hippies running around town with placards that say “THE END IS NIGH.” They’re now making movies in Hollywood..."

Bottom line: the movie wasn’t a waste of time. This blog is.

‘catch you later…