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Knowing
EMAILPRINTSummit Entertainment
Mixed or average reviews
Based on 27 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 207 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Action | Suspense/Thriller
Written by:
Alex Proyas, Stuart Hazeldine
Ryne Douglas Pearson
Juliet Snowden, Stiles White
Richard Kelly
Directed by: Alex Proyas
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 20, 2009
DVD: July 7, 2009
Running Time: minutes, Color
Origin: USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for disaster sequences, disturbing images and brief strong language
Starring Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne, and Chandler Canterbury
In 1958, as part of the dedication ceremony for a new elementary school, a group of students is asked to draw pictures to be stored in a time capsule. But one mysterious girl fills her sheet of paper with rows of apparently random numbers instead. Fifty years later, a new generation of students examines the capsule's contents and the girl's cryptic message ends up in the hands of young Caleb Koestler. But it is Caleb's father, professor John Koestler, who makes the startling discovery that the encoded message predicts with pinpoint accuracy the dates, death tolls and coordinates of every major disaster of the past 50 years. As Ted further unravels the document's chilling secrets, he realizes the document foretells three additional events—the last of which hints at destruction on a global scale and seems to somehow involve Ted and his son. When Ted's attempts to alert the authorities fall on deaf ears, he takes it upon himself to try to prevent more destruction from taking place. (Summit Entertainment)
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
Knowing is among the best science-fiction films I've seen -- frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Scott Mendelson
This is a severely flawed, but also a fascinating and engrossing science fiction film, a picture that offers far more than surface thrills.
Read Full Review >Austin Chronicle Josh Rosenblatt
It's just engaging enough to make you accept the possibility that two kids from the Boston suburbs may just be mankind’s only hope for the future, and just exciting enough to make you forget that you're watching a Nicolas Cage movie.
Read Full Review >Portland Oregonian Stan Hall
By being judicious with CGI, Proyas gives the film's handful of disaster sequences great impact.
Read Full Review >Variety Todd McCarthy
Genre fans always looking for something new and awesome may feel like they've seen most of this before, but the conceptual and emotional strength of Summit's Nicolas Cage starrer largely carries the day.
Read Full Review >Washington Post Michael O'Sullivan
Yes, Knowing is creepy, at least for the first two-thirds or so, in a moderately satisfying, if predictable, way.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall
Early scenes of mayhem and destruction are marred by subpar special effects; those in the final reel are spectacular, but there's a long wait for them because the movie is so maddeningly, portentously slow.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey
Whatever else Proyas has done in Knowing, he has created an ending that is sure to divide audiences into camps of love it or hate it, deeming its message either hopeful or hopelessly heavy-handed. For me, it doesn't quite work; still I'm glad he took the risk.
Read Full Review >Premiere Olivia Putnal
While the concept is interesting, the whole thing comes off as a rather hilarious, um, disaster.
Read Full Review >Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea
Knowing has about a half-dozen screenwriter credits, which may explain why scenes crash up against one another - smart, stupid, far-fetched, compelling. And the trouble is that Cage walks (or runs) through them all, treating each with the same level of intensely goofy seriousness.
Read Full Review >Chicago Tribune Christopher Borrelli
Until it jumps the tracks into self-righteousness, though, Knowing, directed by Alex Proyas, can also be as unnerving as the best episodes of "The Twilight Zone."
Read Full Review >ReelViews James Berardinelli
Science fiction fans will feel gypped, disaster movie fans will appreciate about 10 minutes of screen time and be bored by the rest, and no one else will care.
Read Full Review >The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Kamal AL-Solaylee
A catalogue of made-in-America delusions, hallucinations and cosmic catastrophes that draws on environmental fear-mongering in one reel and evangelical lore the next.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps
Knowing frequently feels one Revelation quote away from turning into a chiding, fundamentalist-friendly end-of-the-world movie in the "Left Behind" mold.
Read Full Review >The New York Times A.O. Scott
The draggy, lurching two hours of Knowing will make you long for the end of the world, even as you worry that there will not be time for all your questions to be answered.
Read Full Review >USA Today Claudia Puig
If you're of a mind to believe a dreary and far-fetched thriller about numerology-crazed alien life forms, then you may find the movie mildly diverting.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
Starts off mildly ridiculous, ascends to the full-blown ludicrous, and finally sails boldly off the edge of the absolutely preposterous.
Read Full Review >New York Post Kyle Smith
UH-UH. Non. Nein. Negative. Sept. 11 is not to be used as the setup for a cheesy disaster prophecy flick.
Read Full Review >Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman
Reviewers sometimes insult actors by saying they don't vary their expressions across an entire movie. But until Knowing, I never thought that could literally be true. Nicolas Cage does widen his eyes with about 15 minutes left in the film.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
If you want to know how inept the movie is...well, it's so inept that you may wish you were watching an M. Night Shyamalan version of the very same premise.
Read Full Review >Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek
If Alex Proyas' Knowing were reasonably entertaining -- instead of just dour, pointless and tedious -- it would be a camp classic.
Read Full Review >LA Weekly Jim Ridley
What would a Christian Apocalypse movie look like with a big budget, a talented director, and star power of higher wattage than a discount Baldwin brother? Here comes the answer: like a glum hybrid of the "Final Destination" movies, an Irwin Allen disaster bash, and the kitschiest parts of Darren Aronofsky's "The Fountain."
Read Full Review >The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt
Director Alex Proyas resolutely thinks in B-movie terms. Even with an A-list budget, he oversells every plot point and gooses the thrills with hokey lighting, bombastic music and serious overacting.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
If you see only one bad movie this year, definitely make it Knowing. The first major disappointment from director Alex Proyas is a disaster movie, a horror picture, a "Da Vinci Code"-style thriller and an end-of-days religious film all at once.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 6.4 (out of 10) based on 207 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Jennifer M gave it a0:
This was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It didn't flow well and half way in, when you didn't think it could get any worse, It DID! I love Nicolas Cage but I couldn't in this. His acting along with everyone elses was horrible. the story was even strange & choppy, special effects looked so fake, and it feels like they were trying too hard.. I watched with with an 11year old who even said how horrible this movie was. It's too bad.
Amin E. gave it a6:
Doomsday coming...! thats the point, no godzilla, no dracula, no zombie. no any ludicrous stranger things. but its like kidding.
Derek L. gave it a4:
If you really hate the Earth, this is a film for you. Set to an odd soundtrack and loosely bound to a very cheezy plot, this film had a good ambition. It also grasped suspense. Instead of jumping when a zombie leaps out of a corner, you know that something will happen, but are genuinely suprised when it happens. Then there are the numerous flaws. Here's the short list: A bad soundtrack, bad actors, a loose plot, and numerous other flaws abound. Also, in the ending (spoiler) all the movie shows is the Earth getting vaporized and then two kids dropping bunnies and running to a tree. What gives? Let me have my 121 miniutes back, Alex Proyas!
Eric E. gave it an8:
I really liked this movie. Not your typical ending but it was a great thrillride on the way in my opinion.
Robert I. gave it a7:
A movie that relies more on psychological doubt than literal representation, it can make your hair stand up. A few scenes, such as a crashing plane, provide enough realism to underscore the unknown. A top-tier psycho-sci-fi.
William W. gave it a1:
I give this a 1 for almost keeping me interested at the start, but it very quickly turns into one of the dumbest big budget films played with a straight face I've ever seen. SPOILER ALERT - if higher beings know the future, can travel through space, etc, then why choose all this weird ambiguous whispering and symbolic nonesense to get people to do as they're told. It makes less than no sense. Plot wise this is complete drivel, only some ok CGI saves about five minutes of this movie. Cage is terrible, mostly because his lines are so stupid, at times he actually explains plot points out loud as if the audience were as dim witted as the writers. Avoid.
Mike H. gave it a0:
Why does nicolas cage keep getting acting jobs? he's dreadful! he displayed one facial expression throughout the entire movie, a movie which would have been terrible even with a decent main actor. albinos, aliens, black pebbles, spacecrafts, adam and eve, and still the most unbelievable part was nicolas cage's acting.
