Knowing

I'm not too proud to admit that Knowing surprised me. What started out as (I thought) a relatively standard 'decipher-the-prophecy/escape-the-disaster' movie (think War of the Worlds, Day After Tomorrow, Roland Emmerich's 2012 and any asteroid movie ever made), rapidly descended into something very different. There were moments throughout that were genuinely quite sinister (although in hindsight, there is a chance that watching it on my own in the dark may have influenced that), and the film wraps itself neatly around some very engaging and wholly impressive special effects (below).

The plane crash sequence, one of the most impressive of the special effects in Knowing, is one continuous shot - from the sight of the plane, to the end of the scene.

Sadly though, the film is let down by some of its real fundamentals. Although the story is different enough in it's raw form to similar prophecy movies, it never really seems to be that engaging. The characters for one, are certainly not people I will be inviting round for my next dinner party. Nicholas Cage plays his standard, slightly annoying hero character, which seems to be a bit of a recurring theme for him in recent years. The trouble is, I can't work out whether it is something he manages to brings to the roles he plays, or whether he's now just been typecast as a succession of 'holier-than-thou' know-it-alls, all the while desperately trying to show that he's capable of greater things (though why he would pin his hopes on films like Ghost Rider and Drive Angry to do that are beyond me). The rest of the cast are pretty much equally unlikable if we're honest, although the growing friendship between the two kids means that at least it's easy enough to watch whilst they are on screen.

Unfortunately for me, the single biggest selling point of the film also turns out to be it's greatest downfall. There is certainly no arguing that I wasn't expecting a great many of the revelations and twists that the film makers decided to weave into the closing stages of the film. Indeed, this is assuredly not a film that can be criticised for not at least trying to break the mould a little when it comes to the 'Hollywood-norms' of prophetic storytelling. So imagine my disappointment at the climax of the film, which leaves me filled with a sense of betrayal, watching the writers plummet to the hateful depths of using the sci-fi equivalent of "and then he woke up" to wrap up. No, I wasn't expecting it, but then that's hardly the point.

Overall, its difficult not to applaud Hollywood for really trying to show that it isn't just full of saccharine happy endings and last second heroic escapes. Unfortunately for Knowing, I'm just not sure that this is the film that's going to do the most convincing job, but at least you can spend 2 hours being vaguely entertained whilst they try.