Today’s quick review: Knowing. John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), an astrophysics professor at MIT, has his entire worldview turned upside-down when his son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) finds a sheet of numbers that correspond to a series of disasters. As John deciphers the code, he becomes convinced that the numbers predict three disasters that have yet to happen, and he risks everything to try to stop them.
Knowing is a sci-fi disaster thriller from director Alex Proyas. A professor who does not believe in fate finds disturbing evidence that a calamitous future is set in stone. Knowing draws on elements of horror, the disaster genre, and far-flung science fiction to tell the story of one man’s fight against prophecy. This unique blend of influences gives Knowing its own niche, but it also results in a passive and somewhat disjointed story.
Knowing has some nice features, even if they do not always complement each other. The disasters that John witnesses are vivid and memorable, taking advantage of modern special effects to convey the scope of what is at stake. The rules of the prophecy are an interesting plot hook, especially as John wrestles with what he has found. The movie also keeps several mysteries going at once, pulling the plot in a different direction as they resolve.
Knowing’s main shortcoming is that it is indirect. The setup is played like a horror movie, with menacing presentation and disturbing questions that remain unanswered, but there are very few actual scares. The looming catastrophe affords John very little counterplay, so all he can do is decipher the clues and hope for a way to change fate. The result is a passive mystery whose answers veer into different territory than what came before.
Give Knowing a shot if you are in the mood for something dark and a little offbeat. Knowing tries something different with the way it sets up its mystery, and while this robs the movie of some of its direct impact, it lets the movie play with ideas that would normally be out of scope for its setup. Still, Knowing’s story is not as easy to get into as some other movies, and neither its characters nor its payoff are enough to fill the gap.
For a more artful science fiction mystery from the same director, try Dark City. For a darker, more personal thriller about a portent of the future, try Premonition. For a less polished sci-fi movie about a man who receives unearthly premonitions, try Terminus. For a more proactive Nicolas Cage movie about changing the future, try Next. For a sci-fi thriller that deals with similar themes of belief, try Signs.
[6.2 out of 10 on IMDB](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448011/). I give it a 6.5 for an unsettling mystery that reaches a little too far.