Review of Knowing (2009) by James B — 26 Dec 2013

I went into this movie with no real expectations, and found myself falling in love with it. I've never been much of a fan of Nicolas Cage, but he delivers one of his finest performances in this film, and Rose Byrne is great in support. Where they found the girl to play her daughter, I have no idea - she looks identical to Rose!

The film did an excellent job in building on suspense and intrigue right from the opening scene with the frightening character of Lucinda. There were even a couple of chilling scenes in the film, such as the one where the son is 'visited' in his bedroom.

The constant build-up and the realisation as to what the other numbers referred to was excellent, leading into an absolutely spectacular plane crash sequence.

The scenes showing the 'people' just standing, watching the house was haunting, though I had my reservations from the moment I saw them as to what they actually were and how they would be explained, and when they were, it was an extreme let-down.

As the film was nearing to its third and final disaster I was thinking to myself that I would give this film a perfect 10 out of 10, depending on how it ended. To my disappointment, it ended really poorly, the final reveal behind the build-up of the mysterious people/Lucinda/the house in the middle of no where/ the rocks/the whispers/the numbers was extremely poor. However, I was willing to forgive it when the film continued and we reached the final disaster, which was phenomenal. However, the closing scene left me groaning and cringing.

Ultimately, a very hard movie to rate, but despite my hating of the last fifteen minutes whenever the kids were shown, the previous two hours were great and powerful enough for the film to retain a very high rating from me.