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Bookmark this pageKnowing (2009)
Director: Alex Proyas
Movie review
From Time Out London
Alex Proyas’s derivative sci-fi movie is a close encounter of the nerd kind, mixing Spielbergian child-like wonder, disaster movie spectacle and the cod-religious silliness of M Night Shyamalan’s ‘Signs’. The premise is compelling, but the execution is over-cooked.
A string of numbers scribbled by an obsessive schoolgirl back in 1959 is given to the son of MIT astrophysicist Nicolas Cage, when a time capsule buried fifty years before is disinterred. Although Cage’s father is a pastor, since the death of his wife he has believed that life is just a random string of accidents. Then he finds patterns in the numbers that seem to correspond to the dates of disasters, and starts to wonder if our fates really are predetermined.
Unfortunately, consideration of these weighty issues soon gives way to what feels like an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ on steroids. There is hard scientific talk about unusual solar flare activity, and intimations of a global ecological disaster. But then the pale-faced ‘Whispering People’ start handing out smooth black stones, and rationality gives way to portentous religious talk about God’s prophet Ezekiel. By the time single mother Rose Byrne, daughter of the now-dead 50s schoolgirl, takes Cage and his young son to the crazy lady’s abandoned mobile home in the woods, it’s easy to predict where this is headed.
The apocalyptic images are impressive, but what do they all add up to? You may end up asking yourself, in the spirit of Erich Von Däniken, ‘Was God An Astronaut?”
Author: Nigel Floyd
Time Out London Issue 2015, Apr 2-8 2009
User reviews of this film
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- Whitecatcb said...
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Posted on Mar 22 2009 05:15
This movie was absolutely appallingly bad. boring, ridiculous, and cliche.
anyone who said it was good has no taste whatsoever. And i usually love movies - Report as inappropriate
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- Matthew said...
- Posted on Mar 22 2009 00:27 It was very good up until the last 5 minutes. The last 5 mintues were cheesy and did not fit the movie. Other than that it was great and totally worth seeing. i'd give it an 8 out of 10.
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- Kurt said...
- Posted on Mar 22 2009 00:17 This had to be the one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Def. not one I would recommend to others.It def. was nothing like the previews and it didn't really have a good story to it. But this is just all in my opinion.
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- Kyle said...
- Posted on Mar 21 2009 16:23 I really enjoyed this movie. Cage's acting was an afterthought and the CGI was astonishing. Tehre were some cliche moments but really it's hard to make something this creative AND original AND good at the same time, so it was well done in my opinion. I liked it more than a lot of people I think, and would personally rate it a 9/10. The ending, for me, pulled the movie together, but a lot of people found it silly. But with people nowadays it's one thing or another, so whatever.
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- Shawn said...
- Posted on Mar 21 2009 04:49 Short & sweet- great sci do movie with great special effects. Interesting storyline. Only if u are a die hard jew or Christian it tries to thwart your faith at the end. Best movie of the year so far!
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- Viv said...
- Posted on Mar 20 2009 21:44 This movie was very...interesting. The graphics were incredible to say the least and the story itself was just as great...until the end. I don't want to spoil the ending so I will not go into too much detail, but I might say a spoiler or two. The ending can be taken as either really cheesy or a different interpretation of god. I saw the symbolism and it was a good idea, but it would have been better without a space ship...yes a space ship. If you want that question answered go see the movie. All in all it was a good movie. It all depends on how you take the ending of the movie that decides if it is great or cheesy. I'd give it a 7.8 out of 10. The movie was worth seeing.
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Cast & crew
Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury, Lara Robinson, Ben Mendelsohn, D.G. Maloney, Nadia Townsend full cast
Rated: 15
Duration: 121 mins
UK Release: Mar 25 2009
US Release: Mar 20 2009
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