Spoilers ahead.
Alex Proyas is a talented director, best known for making two of the best genre films of the 90s, "The Crow" and "Dark City." His later films got middling to bad reviews, and I know I skipped "Knowing" because of the terrible critical reception. I read the spoilers for the ending at some point, which just reinforced my decision. However, recently I stumbled across the Nicolas Cage action film "Next," where he plays a magician who has precognition. I remembered that people frequently got "Next" mixed up with "Knowing," where Nicolas Cage also wrangles with precognition, so I thought it might make for a fun double feature. And maybe I could get a post out of it. It turns out there is plenty in "Knowing" for a whole post by itself.
"Knowing" was released in 2009, the same year as apocalypse movies "2012" and "The Road." All three seemed to be building on anxieties about the impending Mayan apocalypse while processing some of the lingering fallout of 9/11. Nicolas Cage plays a widower with a young son, who stumbles across a list that predicts a series of fatal disasters, culminating in the end of the world. The first hour of "Knowing" is an excellent supernatural thriller, full of creepy revelations and building suspense. Cage decodes the list and tries to prevent the disasters, but fails every time. Meanwhile, sinister figures dubbed "The Whisper People" keep showing up, looming over Cage's son. There's a good argument that "Knowing" should be considered a horror movie, with occasional jump scares, smash cuts, and some of the most spectacular kill sequences ever put on film. The plane crash and subway derailment sequences are still jaw-dropping to watch, among the best I've ever seen. However, it's the bleak tone and paranoid atmosphere that really set "Knowing" apart, where the hero is helpless to do anything except witness the carnage. At times it feels like a repudiation of the Roland Emmerich style disaster films like "Independence Day" and "The Day After Tomorrow."
The second half of the movie is about the discovery of an apocalyptic event coming to wipe out all life on Earth, and how the characters respond. The final disaster is solar flares destroying the atmosphere, and this is scientifically pure bunk, but that's not really the point. Suddenly the movie shifts to more spiritual and existential matters, as Cage is forced to confront his own faith, and the Whisper People are revealed to be benevolent creatures, interceding to save some of the children of Earth from annihilation. There are visual indicators that they might be aliens or they might be angels, but it's left ambiguous on purpose. This is the material that left so many viewers dumbfounded, and in some cases very upset. The impact on me was blunted by the fact that I had read the spoilers, but I agree that these elements should have been set up better than they were, since many viewers clearly weren't ready or receptive to them. The ending is a perfect illustration of tonal whiplash, as we're treated to a view of the total destruction of life on Earth, immediately followed up by shots of the rescued kids running through an Edenic alien landscape, ready to start over.
However, "Knowing" turning out to be part Biblical allegory, and pivoting to a different genre in the last act felt familiar and oddly nostalgic to me. "Dark City" had a similar reveal, though that one showed its hand earlier, and the dark sci-fi tone was still pretty much the same throughout. The answers to supernatural mysteries in films like this are frequently so insubstantial or incomplete that it was a wonderful shock to realize that "Knowing" was giving us something completely different. Suddenly I was watching a "Twilight Zone" episode, where I was being asked to accept an answer that was much bigger and stranger than I had been anticipating. It was Revelations all along! And as silly as it sounds on its face, this is a satisfying answer, even if the sequence of events to reach it is shamelessly contrived to fit the demands of a suspense thriller. I want to make it clear that I'm not Christian and have no particular attachment of affinity for Christian mythology. However, I respect and appreciate the writers of "Knowing" incorporating this kind of material in a thoughtful way.
"Knowing" turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant surprise, and it now gives me a third Alex Proyas film I can wholeheartedly recommend. It's not a great film, and will not work for everyone, clearly, but the parts and pieces are so interesting that I think it warrants further consideration. Roger Ebert certainly thought so, devoting multiple pieces to "Knowing" and its deeper themes that I had to go to the Wayback Machine to dig up. And they're worth digging up.
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