KNOWING starts 50 years ago as a class of elementary school kids decide to do drawings about the future to be buried into a time capsule to be opened up in 50 years.   One girl, Lucy, decides to write a series of numbers that threaten to drive her mad.   It is taken away from her be the teacher before she can finish.   She disappears at the dedication of the school only to be found later scratching more numbers into a school door with her fingernails. 

Flash forward to 2009 where Professor John Koestler (Nic Cage) is a boozing MIT professor who doesn’t believe in God anymore after his wife was killed in a fire leaving him a single Dad.   He comes to the school that buried the time capsule.  The capsule gets opened up and John’s son, Caleb, gets the mysterious list of numbers.   Caleb doesn’t put it back in the capsule.  John notices it at home.  He starts to obsess over it and the sets of numbers tie to disasters by date, location, and number of victims.   John notices a few that have happened yet.   He gets wrapped up in trying to save people and discovers something bigger is about to happen.

KNOWING is like a M. Night Shyammalan film that is actually decently directed and a better script (except the ending).   KNOWING isn’t without it’s faults (where they could have played up the relationship between John and his minister father more).   Still the main flaw is the ending which I will discuss now and you can click away if you don’t want to be spoiled.

How the strangers who whispers to Professor Koestler’s son, Caleb, decide to act is what disturbs me about the ending?  It comes off as The Rapture meets Close Encounter of the Third Kind.   To me if humanity was going to be burned by a solar flare, I wish the aliens (aka the Whisper People) would have chosen more than two of each species like Noah’s Ark.  What about human culture?  It will become myth and be forgotten.  The way Koestler decides to give up his son just upsets me.  If I was a father, I would tell the aliens to take me with the kids or kill me.  I don’t care if it is useless.  It’s human.   If the Whisper People knew of the disaster years before, they should have been taking some people away whether they heard the call or were the chosen ones.   Don’t get me started on the kids being dropped off on an alien world in new clothes and decide to happily run to a tree in the middle of the meadow while all the alien ships take off?   Up to that point, I thought all of the alien ships meant more than two of each species were saved.   The ending just comes off as bad after Koestler decides to be with the rest of his family before the solar flare burns up the Earth.   I wasn’t asking for a way to save the planet from a massive solar flare.  I just was looking for better resolution to the ones who survived to be taken to a new world (and not just two kids).  I really thought the solar flare of doom and the chaos that ensues was a good idea to tackle.   Just how the Whisper People tie in was poorly executed.  Other than the ending that threatens to make people groan, KNOWING is a film that could have been a classic if it wasn’t for the flaws in the ending.

This movie review is (c)3-26-2009 David Blackwell and cannot be reprinted without permission.  send all comments to lord_pragmagtic@hotmail.com