"Knowing"

Last weekend I wanted to watch Seven Pounds by Will Smith but the cinemas were no longer screening this movie (yeah, I'm so yesterday).



Anyway, a movie poster caught my attention and I briefly heard of this new movie from someone before. So I just bought the tickets for "Knowing" but not really knowing what was the movie about.

The movie begun in 1959, students in an elementary school were told to draw predictions of the future world- 50 years later. Some drew flying cars and space travel. But one little girl, Lucinda is not drawing a picture but furiously scribbling a series of strange numbers (below pic) while looking very disturbed. The drawings were buried in a time capsule. Fifty years later, the time capsule is opened during the school's 50th anniversary and Lucinda's scribblings end up in the hands of Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury) which was discovered by his father astrophysicist John Koestler (Nicolas Cage). John has recently lost his wife in a tragic hotel fire and is a troubled soul. He is entangled between whether life is a series of events in a pre-determined order or a set of random incidents. One night, after a few drinks he happens to notice a pattern in the numbers. The numbers list a series of predictions of disasters around the world and a few has yet to happen.

The first half of Knowing was pretty predictable when John's warnings went unheeded as no one believes him, not even his best friend. Meanwhile his son Caleb starts to see eerie visions, mysterious men and hear undecipherable whispers which was what similarly happened to Lucinda.

What does the numbers really mean? Who are the mysterious men? Can John saves the day?


Nicholas Cage's protrayal of John was emotionally bland at best. I think his expressions were too subtle, too weak. Chandler Canterbury's character of Caleb was more refreshing and inspiring. The high points of Knowing which I like best were the dramatic intense disaster scenes - the visual and sound effect was absolutely superb and real. Director Alex Proyas (The Crow) has also done well in keeping the eerie atmosphere (my friend's sudden jerky reaction whenever she was scared) and mystery right to the end of the movie.

Chilling Scenes

Of course there were many bits and pieces of the movie which went unexplained but the mysterious momentum was driving the plot forward without really noticing. It is science fiction bordering on current realities and hypothetical imagination.

The ending is open to interpretation and debatable but unless you want everything explained to ridiculous detail, I would say... it's worth to watch.