Knowing - First Impressions

Ok,

(I like starting like that...)

I'm going to say right now SPOILERS!!

Don't read this if you hate knowing how things turn out.

From "Shit just happens" to "It's not the end." An Alex Proyas movie.


My first impression is: "Gee I hate end of the world flicks."

But let's go beyond that, and look at the movie as a whole, because really only the last 8 - 10 minutes (in my estimation) were end of the world.

Ok, so it begins in 1959, Lucinda (Laura Robinson - great acting btw) is a little girl who puts a letter into a time capsule. The letter was seemingly dictated by the "Whisperers." She heard whispers and wrote numbers... and they didn't lock her up? She even went missing after the ceremony where they buried the time capsule. (And I tell ya, someone needs to tell those cops about lights. I mean, they're searching a BRAND NEW SCHOOL for a little girl, and they are all using flashlights. I only noticed them turn on one light during the search scene. Goofy.)

Fifty years later young Caleb Koestler (Chandler Canterbury) gets the letter when the time capsule is opened.

His father John Koestler (Nicholas Cage) figures out that the numbers represent disasters. They are the date, casualties, and longitude latitude coordinates. The final disaster is happening on October 19th of 2009, and it has no death toll, only two symbols that turn out to be a mistakenly backwards EE.

John employs the help of Lucinda's daughter (Diana Wayland, portrayed by Rose Byrn) and granddaughter to discover the answers to the questions. (Ol' Lucy had an OD years ago.) Abby (the granddaughter, also portrayed by Laura Robinson --at least according to wikipedia--) and Caleb can hear the same whisperings that Lucinda could hear. They say "You can come with us if you choose." (Or something like that. Quoting from memory here.) Little mistake here. John Koestler happens to know Abby's name without ever being told. I guess we could assume that he looked up her name when he tracked down Lucinda's family, but Diana seems totally unconcerned that this strange man knows her daughter's name already. I suspect a deleted scene.

Oh my the mystery! What does EE stand for? Why is there no longitude and latitude? What can they do to survive? Why are Abby and Caleb hearing the whisperers? Who are the strange guys with bleached hair? (I know I didn't tell you about them yet. Hehe.)

Strange guys with bleached hair show up periodically through the movie. They don't talk, but it is made clear (eventually) that they are the whisperers. They like to give out black rocks. Go figure.

It is finally made clear that EE stands for "Everyone Else" (number of casualties) and there is no one location on Earth... the entire planet is gonna burn. A massive solar flare is gonna fry the place. "I don't wanna make the world burn."

The movie was awesome up to a point around where all this is revealed. Right after the car crash scene it tends towards cheese. (The car crash is the last good scene, although not everything was cheese after that point, it is where the story overall turned into cheese. Acting and overall film making remained the same quality, just the story went south --in my opinion--)

Anyway... to make a long story short-ish: The whisperers turn out to be angliens. (It is semi-obvious that the film makers wanted the viewer to decide whether they were angels or aliens, so I call them angliens.) The angliens take Abby and Caleb to another planet to "start over," but leave behind the poor un-chosen A.K.A, those who didn't hear the whispers. The place where the space ship came to get the kids and the angliens had thousands of the little black rocks on the ground... I guess that's supposed to explain why they liked to give them out. "Here's some dirt from our landing pad. Hope it leads you to us!" EH? It'd just creep the (insert expletive here) out of me if some guy (with bleached hair) gave me a rock. Bear in mind THEY DON'T TALK!

It is implied (but not directly shown) that there are other chosen people that the angliens saved.

The movie has the kids running up to a big tree on their new home in a sunshiny world wearing white clothes. I couldn't help but think "Don't eat the fruit!"

Anyway... I still hate end of the world flicks, but this was a well done movie. I only dislike the ending.

I think the angliens were cool until they turned into glowing, blue, naked people. (Nothing explicit. Outlined butts is the closest to nudity you get with them really.) They were creepy while you thought they were evil.

The acting was good over all. I still dunno about Caleb's character though. Chandler is either very talented and was portraying a slightly odd child, or untalented and came off as slightly odd. You decide when you see it.

Yeah go see it.

I'd give it 4/5 stars. I liked the idea, but the ending was somewhat predictable. Half way through the film my friend is like "It's the sun!"

Haha... I watched the world burn.

Ok,

Memorable scene: John Koestler takes out a hand gun and checks it... and then takes out the manual and reads it.