a horrible plan from the alien race to choose a genetically defected kid

I hope baumer's review was saved somewhere...

BOM perhaps where he originally wrote it.

can't wait!

One small problem. Proyas...

I think an even bigger issue was the lack of Asian students at MIT. That classroom should have been 85-90% Asian.

The nerd in me wants a breakdown of the disasters predicted on that sheet.

Do really we need to hear about your sex life?

If I said that nearly every film that comes out of Hollywood is pure cinematic genius, you would know I was being sarcastic. If, on the other hand, I said that great film died with the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick, you would know that I was a cynic. And, if you were an astute reader, you would notice my clever working of a variant of the one-word title of the film this review discusses in the first two sentences of this article. Of course, you aren't reading this to learn about my literary genius, but to learn a little bit about this cinematic erm...adventure.

Unfortunately, Knowing, a hybrid sci-fi-horror-drama-thriller, makes me feel a little bit like the latter of the first two sentences may in fact be true. It falls somewhere between "Laughable" and "Painful to Watch", and it could easily be a lot better the more alcohol (or other mind-altering substances) one consumes. It is as if the writer gave no thought to creating a coherent plotline and certainly didn't bother to keep things even partially realistic. And then there is the problem of Nicolas Cage. Once a decent, nay good, actor, he has since seemed to have devolved almost entirely. Currently, he posses exactly three facial expressions, they are as follows: Shocked surprise, contemplation (with a hint of surprise at the end) and grief (usually followed by writhing on the ground clutching his side). He uses all three expressions quite frequently throughout Knowing. Unfortunately, those are the only facial expressions he uses.

But first things first. There is the problem of the plot. A plot so full of perfect "coincidences" that really aren't coincidences except that in some way they kind of are supposed to be. That makes sense? Right? From the get-go, we learn of Lucinda (Lara Robinson in one of two roles), a girl who today would likely be diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia. Lucinda hears voices, lots of them. So many that during a class project to "draw the future", she sits down and writes an entire page of numbers. Random numbers to most of us, but to her they have some sort of meaning. That is all we know.

Fast forward 50 years in the future, and the page of numbers has been buried in a time-capsule which is now being unearthed to celebrate the anniversary of the school Lucinda attended. The current children at the school are all excited to grasp a piece of history, and each one is given one of the drawings placed in the ground from half a century ago. Enter into the picture Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) and his father John (Nicolas Cage). John just happens to be a physicist, teaching at MIT, and his son just happens to be the lucky recipient of the page full of numbers. And no, this is not the first "coincidence" but they come too fast to keep much track or make much sense of.

Did I mention that John's wife died a few years earlier, and despite his best efforts to be a good father, it is obvious that his son is slowly slipping away from him. That was a plot line that somehow worked its way into the script but the writers didn't exactly flesh it out very much, most likely because they were too busy trying to figure out the next coincidence.

At any rate, one night, John, being drunk, just happens to set a full glass of liquid on top of the page of numbers, which has been randomly placed on the kitchen counter. The water mark from the glass just happens to circle a random selection of numbers "091120012996". Out of an entire page of numbers mind you, it just so happens to surround these, which are possibly recognizable to some people, and after close inspection should at least make some sense. It is, of course, the date "9-11-2001" and then "2,996", the date and number of deaths of the September 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. Suddenly, though he is obviously heavily inebriated, something catches in John's head and he takes another look at the picture. Enter coincidence number...well I can't exactly remember. He starts sorting through the list and manages to pick out a pattern of date, number of deaths and then eight random numbers which he doesn't quite understand.

And thus our plot is launched. Almost. John thinks that this piece of paper is able to predict all of the major "disasters" over the past 50 years, though it seems to end sometime in 2009 - October 9, to be precise. But there is still the pesky problem of those other numbers. Not to worry though, the filmmakers add another little coincidence here. You see, the next day happens to be the day of the next disaster, and John just happens to be right in the path (a jetliner crashes into an abandoned field), and just happens to look at his navigation system right as he reaches the spot where the disaster occurs and just happens to notice the numbers are very close to the eight numbers he could not decipher on the page. And of course, he just happens to have all of this click a few seconds before he jumps out of his car and watches the jetliner crash in to the field.

At this point the film just becomes laughable. We are treated to burning passengers running in circles from a plane. Another set runs back into the flames, dancing what would appear to be a pagan ritual in a circle of flames. Perhaps the writers had a flame fetish. Or perhaps this really just is terrible filmmaking.

The rest of the film is more of the same. John becomes something of the male-equivalent of Nancy Drew, drawing random conclusions and trying to be a detective to "save the world", though of course, not without the help of a number of other "coincidences". And what hodge-podge of a film would be complete without an asinine and insanely cheesy ending? Certainly not this one. While I applaud the filmmakers for trying something at least a little bit risky, this wasn't exactly the risk that pays off in the end. Destroying the Earth? No big deal. Having aliens in bizarre spaceships that have utterly useless parts floating around and would be completely non-aerodynamic in reality? Sure that's fine. But to throw in the most cheese-tastic ending when John just has to make up with his long-lost father and spend his last moments (and he manages to arrive just a few moments before the world ends) with his family…that stretches even my disbelief a little bit too far.

Enough about the plot though. It would be one thing if the plot was shaky, if the filmmakers had made up for it elsewhere. But they don't. We are treated to one of the most irritating soundtracks in recent memory. Something about hearing what sounds like Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee" during an intense chase scene that just doesn't quite work. Nor does the rest of the soundtrack.

And the rest of the film is just as poorly crafted. There is no novelty to the special effects. No amazing acting. No world-changing message. There is no hope. No belief in the future - unless you happen to be one of the few children chosen by the aliens in the end. If you are old enough to be reading this, then you are obviously too old to fly off on the non-aerodynamic spaceship.

There is nothing to make this film anything worthwhile. There is no celebration of the human spirit. There is simply nothing but empty coincidences and a conclusion that left even me, someone who can look beyond the flaws in many films dumbfounded.

Perhaps one of the worst films in recent memory, Knowing is definitely a turkey. Barely even worth a grade but for the sake of tradition, it gets an D. And the only reason it gets that, is because at least I chuckled, once.

That is one of the dumbest reviews I have ever read.

hahaha

dancing

thats just .. thats just precious jeff.

Sorry to hear you didn't like it, Jeff - - but glad to know that you're the only one at KJ that had this reaction...

Can't help it that intelligence is a dieing art.