DVD Review: 'Knowing' Starring Nicholas Cage

'Knowing', Nicholas Cage's newest outing, is a science fiction thriller that has captivated us with the trailer as we see a man desperately trying to save a group of people aboard an out-of-control New York subway train that is looking to take the lives of many people in Grand Central Station. With that alone, I was intrigued as to what Cage would be giving to us this time. Now after seeing this film, I can see now while the old saying 'never judge a book by its cover' is so true today.

Cage plays astrophysics professor John Koestler, a widowed teacher who is raising his twelve-year-old son alone shortly after the timely passing of his wife nearly five years before. Struggling to cope being a single parent and all at the same time his alcoholism and his job at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, John Koestler is a man who has little left in life to live for. Koehler, however, begins a mysterious journey of discovery after the school that his son attends is having a ceremony with the opening of a time capsule that was buried on the school grounds in 1959 and would soon be opened again in the present day. However, when Koehler's son receives one of the items inside from a former student that consists of a series of unknown numbers on a simple piece of paper, the story really begins as we follow Koestler on his quest to find out the meanings of the numbers that has seemed to captivate his son so. Soon, Koehler realizes using the powers of mathematics and probability that these numbers were a list of dates that were written by the former student are a series of predictions for natural and man-made disasters that are soon to happen in the present day. Fires, explosions, and even the 9/11 tragedy have been placed on this list... which were predicted nearly eighty years ago before they were ever to happen! After being able to understand the small girl's predictions, Koestler soon walks the tighrope between madness and sanity as he races to understand what could be happening next!

As the movie progresses, Koestler begins showing his findings to a work colleague, a professor of cosmology who does not see the pattern of the numbers and looks at them as some sort of random cipher that was created from the mind of a deranged child. But, Koestler begins believing that the numbers may be more than just predictions but rather more of a prophecy of things to come as he witnesses first-hand the calculations hard at work. Plane crashes, terrible subway accidents, and more happen right before the teacher's eyes as he does what he can to attempt to stop these deadly occurrences from ever happening. What lies ahead, however, may be more than what Koestler can handle as he begins questioning figures from the student's past such a former teacher and even her daughter and granddaughter who may know more about their former family member's history than they are willing to tell. John must then not only race to stop the predictions from happening but also protect his own son who is being shadowed by a mysterious group of men dressed in black whose intentions are not yet known.

Cage has come a long way in his prestigious career and with every film he attempts to show versatility in his acting as often as he can. The sad fact remains is that every once in a while, even his talents can fall short not becuase of his acting ability but for the scripts that he takes for work. 'Knowing' does have a lot of riveting suspense where you watch him as he tries to make sense in some way of what cannot be explained. Where the film falls short, unfortunately, is the ending that was supposed to tie everything together. While some may call it 'mind-bending' or 'unexpected', I call it 'typical'. I would tell you the ending myself, but I have always believed that everyone always has the choice to determine what makes a good film rather than simply accept the answer of a critic. For myself, I had found myself wanting due to the expectations I had set for the film before watching. The trailers made the viewer carry the assumption that the film would be automatically connected to Biblical prophecy such as films like 'The Da Vinci Code' starring Tom Hanks and 'The Body' starring Antonio Banderas. While those sort of elements may have definitely existed in the film, the screenwriter had also attempted to make it a mixture of prophecy and the beliefs of the scientific community.

'Knowing' did have the ability to be a fantastic film. It carried all the elements that made thrillers of this nature great. Where it failed was in the experimentation. In the future, whoever wrote the screenplay may want to perhaps do a little bit of research into the subject of prophecy and the Bible before placing words to paper.

My over-all rating is three out of five.