Nic Cage is back, and in Knowing, he plays a college professor named John Koestler who’s a single dad. His son’s school celebrates the 50th anniversary of a time capsule being raised from the ground. Back in 1959, the schoolchildren all drew pictures of what they thought life would be like in the far-flung future of 2009. But when the capsule is opened, and each in the present day class receive an envelope from a student from 1959, instead of a picture, John’s son Caleb receives a handwritten note that’s crammed with numbers. When the boy accidentally brings the strange note home, John, a widower who’s still mourning his wife, has nothing better to do but try and decipher the strange code.
He soon discovers that some of the seemingly random numbers are actually infamous dates in history--the first one is all too recognizable: 9/11/01. Each date is a terrible tragedy, either natural or manmade, that has occurred within the last fifty years. The numbers after the dates list how many victims have died. Spending the night checking each date, John discovers that Lucinda, the mysterious young girl who wrote this list, was correct each and every time. Not only are the dates correct, but the number of victims, as well. And, there are three more dates left on Lucinda’s list, and all three of these events have not happened…yet.
Nic Cage is a wild man. A good actor who won an Oscar for Leaving Las Vegas,
Cage isn’t afraid to take chances, and he’s a fan of SF/fantasy--which,
unfortunately, has led to some really rotten movies like Next. When I first
heard about Knowing, I figured it would be another Cage stinker. But I was very
pleasantly surprised. Directed by Alex Proyas, who gave us the vastly underrated
Dark City, Knowing starts out as a standard thriller in the Da Vinci Code
mode--or as in Cage’s own National Treasure films--as Koestler scrambles to
figure out the clues to the upcoming disasters that the now-deceased Lucinda has
left behind, so that he may save as many lives as he can.
But Proyas isn’t interested in making just another thriller about solving
puzzles; when strange men begin to show up at the Koestler house, it’s clear
that the Australian auteur is far too savvy to be making just another cookie
cutter thriller. And Cage is at his dependable best here; as is Rose Byrne, who
plays Lucinda’s grown daughter. I don’t want to give away the major shift in tone
that Knowing undergoes, but I will say that it’s far more satisfying than the
recent remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still. And it’s final haunting images
will resonate with you for days after you’ve viewed the film.
--SF
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