There’s plenty of love being heaped on Alex Proyas, who has, with only three major films under his belt, been able to establish himself as a filmmaker of some distinction. Known primarily for using film noir as inspiration for the look of his films, Proyas combines art house cinema with subject matter more fitting a Hollywood blockbuster. Films like The Crow and Dark City are cult classics (although not pantheon by any stretch) but his last film, I, Robot was an altogether forgettable blockbuster.
Roger Ebert claimed Knowing, Proyas’s latest, as one of the best science-fiction films he’d ever seen. I almost expected that from Ebert, considering he’s been Dark City‘s biggest cheerleader. Entertaining and mildly thought-provoking, Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, only lives up to its potential as a sci-fi thriller for half of its running time, before regrettably overreaching in the end and falling flat. It is a film that is hard to praise but just as difficult to admonish. The film is surprisingly well crafted. I say surprisingly because I was expecting another Nicolas Cage disaster, like the kind of films he’s been offering up audiences for the past few years: Next, Bangkok Dangerous, Wicker Man, Ghost Rider, etc…
Nicolas Cage plays John Koestler, an MIT professor who gets his hands on a coded message after its dug up by the school his son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury), attends during a time capsule celebration. Initially, John is intrigued and soon he makes out a pattern in the numbers that predicts future catastrophes. After the revelation is made, he seeks to find more information on the little girl who wrote the numbers. It turns out the little girl back in 1959 became the mother of Diana (Rose Byrne), a single mom who teams up with John and helps him figure out what the numbers mean. For the first half of the film, the story is engaging, the performances tolerable (especially from Mr. Cage) and the atmosphere thick with impending doom. It is in the second half that things fall apart.
Is John supposed to warn people of the upcoming disasters or does he just need to show up to witness the events? Why are the numbers written down and then buried for thirty years? The second half shifts tones and becomes concerned with philosophical questions of faith: is there an order to all things or does circumstance and blind chance take precedence? Indeed, these are serious subjects for a mid-March science-fiction film. I applaud Proyas for trying to add some depth to a pretty fantastical plot. But these plot points are clumsy, and unless I missed something, they not properly setup from the beginning. It’s too bad because the film had me up to that point.
While the film works in places – the plane crash sequence and the subway crash are spectacular – the ending, in which the world is literally cooked, is too much, too fast and ends up cheating the audience. It is a third act surprise that feels tacked on and unnecessary. It simply feels like a different film. Signs, dealt with similar themes of faith, science and the supernatural, but was better plotted and more gripping. In Signs, we knew the rules, and so we could accept what Shyamalan doled out. Here, however, Proyas tricks the audience into accepting a faith based disaster film. And yet, Knowing is far superior to the schlock Shyamalan has been peddling since The Village.
Richard Saad
© Cinephile Magazine, 2009