By John Garces/entertainment editor
In the action thriller Knowing, Nicolas Cage plays an MIT professor who sets about having to find a way to stop the end of the world.
Set in the present day, John Koestler, played by Cage, has to put his scientific knowledge to the test after his son, Caleb, played by Chandler Canterbury, brings home a paper filled with nothing but a mysterious string of numbers.
The paper had been left in a time capsule buried at the elementary school 50 years earlier by a disturbed girl named Lucinda Embry.
Now, Koestler discovers that the series of numbers are the dates certain disasters would occur in the future, followed by the number of casualties that the disaster would claim as well as the coordinate points where these events would take place.
Things get even more complicated when his son begins to hear the same voices whispering to him that Lucinda had heard so many years ago. Then a group of otherworldly-looking creatures appear to take an interest in the boy after he possesses the note.
After noticing that only three tragedies remain on the paper, Koestler tries to fend off the inevitable, putting himself in harm’s way and eventually tracking down the family of Lucinda through a chance meeting at a local museum.
After a plane crashes on a busy highway and a terrorist plot causes two subway cars in New York to crash, Koestler realizes only one more remains and becomes desperate to stop it.
Uniting with Lucinda’s daughter, Diana, played by Rose Byrne, and Diana’s daughter, Abby, played by Lara Robinson (who also played Lucinda at the beginning of the movie), they set about trying to zero in on the one remaining tragedy.
Reality begins to set in when they realize that the numbers signifying the last tragedy are the ones that warn of the end of the world.
Koestler and Diana spend the final days before the impending disaster trying to get Caleb and Abby to safety as well as warn everyone what to do to have the best chance of survival.
The last half-hour of the film drives home the movie’s premise of “knowing is everything.” The main characters all react differently to the weight of the impending end of the world with everything coming together in the final scene.
The film concludes with both religious and catastrophic images to show that all hope is not lost.
Knowing does have several graphic sequences, so those who are squeamish should be warned ahead of time.
Otherwise, fans of suspense thrillers, and of Cage himself, will likely not be disappointed.
