BOTTOM LINE: Over the top and way too serious, “Knowing” plays its prophetic doomsday story out with a heavy-handed sledge hammer; the acting is good, the visuals are marvellous, but the depressing and slightly arthouse climax coupled with an uneven handling of themes make this film a disappointing experience.

THE GOOD: Combining a disaster movie with a mystical prophecy plot is hardly anything new but it always remains a fascinating concept. The idea of a group of kids from the fifties drawing pictures of what they think the future will be like and burying them in a time capsule to be unearthed fifty years later is a good twist, particularly as one of the children hears voices which tell her the dates and locations of every major disaster to occur on the planet for the next fifty years, which she transcribes on to her drawing paper. Nicolas Cage plays single father John Koestler whose son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) is the recipient of the mysterious page of numbers. Soon enough, strange looking people appear in the shadows, and after closer examination, John finds the numbers have meaning. He sets about trying to stop the disasters from occurring, but eventually he realises, there is nothing he can do about the ultimate disaster set to occur when the numbers run out. Director Alex Proyas has been known for combining high concept science-fiction motifs, Hollywood-style execution with an arthouse twist and “Knowing” is no exception. He manages to combine a few big disaster sequences (which look spectacular), some fine acting from the cast (in particularly Nicolas Cage), and then also offer a climax that you are not likely to expect from a Hollywood movie. The film has some good moments of terror, action, character and thrills.

THE BAD: Overkill would be a good way to describe how this film was directed. The central concept is sound, but given the heavy-handedness of the storytelling, it comes across as a little ridiculous. All the characters seem like they are suffering through everything right from the beginning which makes it difficult to watch. The disaster sequences are a little brutal, particularly the airline crash where John watches people on fire jumping out of the burnt remains of the plane, or being visibly caught in subsequent explosions and fireballs. The subway train sequence is the same, with the physical impact of the train wiping out people making the scene hard to sit through. The film is full of plot holes and conveniences; how Nicolas Cage ended up in the exact spot of the first disaster and in turn finding the final piece of the puzzle in decoding the sheet of numbers is one of the most amazing coincidences ever put to film, but the film tries to gets its way around this by playing to the themes of destiny versus random chance, however far-fetched it becomes. The musical score by Marco Beltrami is likewise way over the top. Whenever the “whisper people” show up, the high pitched thriller tones are overbearing to the point where you want to cover your ears. The “whisper people” are also another point of contention; their first appearances are quite creepy, but as the film continues on, an uneven handling of their place in the film makes them lose their effectiveness as the other-worldly focus of the film. Proyas at first seems to suggest that they are aliens who are out to get us, but then when the film shifts tone in the climax to a more religious motif with the idea of settling a new Adam and Eve on another planet to start again, he seems to suggest they are more God-like, particularly in the last shot of them flying away in to space with Caleb and his new friend running through the fields towards the tree of knowledge. “Knowing” seems to sit half way between a great Hollywood disaster movie and a great independent arthouse film but without capturing the elements from either that would make the film great. “Knowing” is an interesting exercise nonetheless, but ultimately disappointing in its execution.