Knowing

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Directed by: Alex Proyas

Price: £19.99

Reviewed by Fergus McShane

1 Star 2 Stars 3 Stars 4 Stars 5 Stars (1 votes, average: 2 out of 5)

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When summer blockbuster season arrives you can expect it to land with a bang… then explosion… then screams. What you wouldn’t expect are quasi-religious questions of fatalism and pre-determinism thrown in, but that is what Knowing delivers.

One part disaster/special-effects thriller, one part supernatural Sci-fi, Knowing follows MIT astrophysicist Nicholas Cage as he uncovers a code inexplicably linked to catastrophes that take place worldwide.

Essentially a disaster movie with some Close Encounters thrown in for good measure, the film loses its way when forced to decide exactly what it wants to be. Instead of fully going down the road of apocalypse movies like The Day After Tomorrow, mysteries like The Number 23, or sci-fi’s like Cocoon, it blends aspects of all, leaving a disjointed epic in the wake. There are even scenes slipped in that could have come straight from horror of the Twilight Zone variety (whispering albinos sneakily doling out black stones).

However there are some redeeming features to Knowing – the plane and train crashes are certainly spectacular and gripping, the ending is well executed (if predictable) and for the most part it packs in the entertainment we have come to expect from an early summer blockbuster.

It may not work on all the portentous levels that it tries to, but Knowing is an enjoyable ‘popcorn’ thriller.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 12:33 pm and is filed under DVD Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.