Knowing

That question pretty much sums up my feelings on Nicolas Cage in one quick statement. In the late 1990s and into the early part of the next century, Cage made a list of pretty good movies, some guilty pleasures and others genuinely good stories. But then he seemed to hit a road block of sorts since with such classics as The Wicker Man, which I love but can admit is a horrible, god awful movie, Ghost Rider, Bangkok Dangerous, Next, and The Weather Man. To be fair, I haven't seen The National Treasure movies, but they're on my list.

For my latest Nic Cage movie, I rented Knowing which came out in theaters this past March. The reviews were generally positive, especially Roger Ebert's review which slobbered all over the movie, and my sister and her husband (both of whom I typically agree with about most movies) really liked it. So I begin by saying I wanted to like it, I like Cage even with his recent string of bombs, and the story sounded promising, but oh how I hated this movie, especially the last hour.

The commercials and the trailer built this movie up a ton, giving just a hint of what's to come. Any apocalypse story is A-ok by me, I'll give it a shot. MIT astrophysicist Dave Koestler (Cage) is a single father trying to raise his son Caleb (a good part for 11-year old Chandler Canterbury). Caleb's school is opening a 50-year old time capsule with each student getting a drawing from a student in 1959 imagining what the future will look like. Some have spaceships, others robots, but David finds that Caleb's is a list of seemingly unrelated numbers. It's almost by accident that David figures out what the numbers mean.

The sheet predicts all sorts of disasters, earthquakes, terrorist attacks, plane crashes, with a freakish accuracy. It predicts dates, amount of people killed and even the location of the incident. But as David looks over the list, there's a handful of numbers at the end, events that haven't happened yet with astronomical casualties listed with the dates. Is there any way he can stop these events from happening, even when he finds the last number prediction could mean the end of the world?

Where to start, where to start? The first hour is as exciting and tense as a sci-fi/thriller/horror movie should be, and that's from someone who typically avoids any sort of movie that might scare me. The two disasters David figures out, a large jet crashing near a freeway and a horrific subway accident, are prime examples of how CGI can be used to enhance a movie instead of distracting from it. Two great set pieces to get the ball rolling. But then the story takes a nasty turn with its predictions of the end of the world. From here on in I'm giving away major plot points so don't read on if you don't want the rest of the movie blown.

In trying to figure out what the deal is with the numbers, David investigates into the life of the little girl who wrote them down. Unfortunately, she died years ago, but her daughter Diana (Rose Byrne) is still around and is also a single parent, raising her daughter Abby (Lara Robinson), and trying to get past all the things her mother told her as she grew up. All that's fine, their involvement does serve to explain where the numbers came from, but the explanation drove me nuts.

Some of the freakier parts of the movie has these mysterious figures appearing out of nowhere to tell Caleb and Abby things, whispering in their ear. It's from them that Diana's mother got the numbers, predicting all sorts of disasters over the years. So what are they, some sort of mysterious religious cult, fanatics looking to destroy the Earth? Nope, they're some sort of aliens from another galaxy/star system looking to protect Caleb and Abby from destruction. Scaring the bejesus out of kids is usually a good way to get them on your side I've found. So instead of Cage trying to solve the world, we get 30-40 minutes of him looking for his kid as the world goes all to hell. "Awesome."

The problem with all this is that the explanation completely negates the first hour. If these light aliens/spirits/deities just need the two kids, what was the point of predicting all the disasters? Couldn't they just have come along and taken the two kids away? Ah, who knows, I'm getting frustrated just thinking about it again. Needless to say, the ending pissed me off to no end. Not the destruction of the Earth because of a solar flare shot from the Sun, that was pretty cool, but everything leading up to it.

What could have been interesting from the storyline is the idea of fate/destiny vs. free choice. Is everything we do influence where we end up in life, or are we supposed to accomplish something in our life and no matter what we do, that one thing is going to happen? But the movie never explores that option. Is Cage's David supposed to find these numbers so that he can put Caleb on the route to safety, or is it all just a random group of events? Interesting ideas, but that's it, nothing more.

Too bad with this movie because as I wrote before, I wanted to like this movie, and after the first hour I was enjoying it. Even the prediction of the Earth being destroyed made the 2nd hour look interesting, but in the execution the story went all over the place with no set idea of the message it was trying to get across. So instead of a great ending, with a huge downer, we get a happy ending with Caleb and Abby running through some wheat field to a beautiful tree in the middle of the prairie. Could it be heaven? Who knows for sure. All I knew was that I was glad I didn't waste $11 to see this one in theaters. Avoid Knowing like the plague.