"Knowing" Movies

Warning spoiling: although that’s probably a good thing.

The other night I decided to rent Knowing starring Nicolas Cage because I thought that the premise was interesting, and I remembered one of my friends from Biola read the script well before it went into production. So I said to myself, “Why not?” Well, it turned out to be a big mistake. No, make that a BIG mistake.

Since I had a fairly hard workout in the morning, I decided to skip basketball in the evening and stay at home with the wife so we could watch a movie together. It sounded like a good idea at the time- until Knowing happened! The movie was so terrible it absolutely ruined my evening with my wife.

The problem with the movie was that it had an interesting premise and the potential to be a decent movie. Sadly, nowadays a “decent” movie is a rarity and most people, myself included, will even settle for an “okay” movie. It’s truly a sad state that Hollywood is in. What I find most frustrating is that a lot of movies have the potential to be really good movies, but for whatever reason producers are hell-bent on running them through the mud.

The plot of Knowing begins in 1959 at William Dawes Elementary School in Lexington, Massachusetts. A time capsule containing students' drawings of their ideas of the future is buried and set to be ceremoniously opened 50 years later. A girl named Lucinda Embry contributes a page full of seemingly random digits. She never actually finishes her work because she is stopped from completing the page by her teacher who thinks that Lucinda has wasted time on her contribution but feels compelled to put it into the capsule anyways. That night Lucinda is found in a school closet. Her fingers are bloodied from scratching at the door, and she complains about hearing voices.

These “random” numbers find their way to Nicolas Cage’s character, John Koestler, a professor of astrophysics at MIT who takes interest in them and realizes the numbers represent the dates and death tolls of every major disaster over the past fifty years, and suggest three disasters still to come.

Now that’s pretty interesting. You would think this movie might at least be decent, but let me go further. There is a scene where Koestler is giving a lecture on astrophysics and in doing so presents the two opposing views of the origin or the genetic make-up of the universe: 1) random chance and 2) intelligent design with a purpose. The interesting thing was that while he is presenting the idea of random chance, Koestler realizes in the middle of his lecture the logical conclusion of this worldview, namely, that if things happen simply because of random chance then life is completely meaningless.

That was a powerful scene. That is until the next couple of lines. When Koestler has this amazing epiphany and looks like he is about to jump off of a bridge because of it, a student interrupts him and asks, “What do you believe professor?” I thought to myself, “This is a perfect opportunity to say something profound that would add depth and character to the movie.” Instead, Koestler replies, “Sh** happens.” Are you kidding me!?! A bunch of punk teenagers smoking pot in their basement could have come up with that line. Did the Wayne brothers write the script? 50 cent? Forrest Gump? Someone was actually paid to write that line!?

Why am I even mentioning any of this? Is it because I don’t want you to rent this movie. True, I don’t want you to rent this movie, but that’s not the reason. The reason is that it kills me is that the writer had a compelling storyline with the potential to explore a serious life question in which anyone would be interested. The question is “What is the meaning of life?” (Do we have any purpose?) One’s worldview and belief system determines that question. People often don’t think about the ramifications of where their beliefs will lead. In much the same that Koestler realized where his belief system led him, the writer could have had a profound effort on his viewers if he guided them the same way. He had an opportunity to wrestle with that question in an entertaining manner but all we got was “Sh** happens,”- which is a good description of this movie.

Some of my suggestions for the movie: 1) Lose the alien bit. The whole alien from other plants with supernatural or superhuman abilities is a cheap cop-out (Unless the aliens are giant robots that transform into cool vehicles and use big guns to fight each other with Megan Fox as one of the characters, I don’t want to see aliens anymore, at least for a very long time). Why couldn’t the writer just leave the little girl (Lucinda Embry) at the beginning of the movie with the gift of prophecy instead of aliens (the whispers) whispering in her head?

2) Allow Koestler to make a difference. After Koestler finds out the nature of the “random” numbers, he intervenes on the projected next event and actually saves some lives. As a result, the death toll numbers on the paper “magically” change right on the page. Take out the solar flare that wipes out the entire earth at the end of the movie and replace it with a much smaller scale catastrophe that Koestler again intervenes but this time he saves Rose Byrne’s character, Diana Wayland (the daughter of Lucinda Embry and a single mother herself. Once Diana is saved, ALL the numbers of the page disappear entirely. This is a symbol of their fate not yet known. Koestler’s only conclusion is that although things may seem determined, their decisions do matter in the end and that life does have meaning and purpose. Part of life is figuring out what that purpose is. Koestler and Wayland fall in love and begin a new life together with their kids. At the same time, the ending of the movie shows another kid on the opposite coast writing down some “random” numbers at her elementary school. Then, the scene fades out.

3) Think about the character development of Koestler. At the beginning of the movie he is clearly still bothered by the loss of his wife. His sister, Allison Koestler (Adrienne Pickering), hints at his broken relationship with his father, who happens to be a pastor. At the end of the movie, Koestler returns home after watching his son (and a couple of bubby rabbits) get taken away by aliens to a safe place. There, at his parent’s house, he looks at his father and simply says “hello” and they all embrace into oblivion. How touching.

Instead of that non-since, how about all the supernatural events and “random” numbers written by a crazy elementary girl: A) Koestler changes to a semi-determinist/intelligent design/purpose from “Sh** happens” guy, realizing that there is purpose in life and what brings meaning is figuring that out and pursuing it. B) Koestler moves on with his life with a new woman believing it’s okay to be happy in a new relationship and even his son benefits from this, C) there is also reconciliation with his father when he realizes that all he’s been preaching throughout the years might be true and that it’s silly to hold grudges when life has meaning, D) and there are no freaking aliens to take his son away. Tell me that wouldn’t be 100 times better than the actual movie. And I just made that up in the time I wrote this blog!

Now do I really care that much about this movie. No. But it bothers me when there are the components to making a good movie and “professional” can’t get it right. Where time and time again I get disappointed in Hollywood. I remember days where quality movies were being pumped out like Hannah Montana CDs. I understand the process from script to screen is a long tedious one where a 100 different people have to get their hands all over it so by the time it gets to the end product, it looks nothing like the original idea. I guess I’ll have to become a Harry Potter fan. Wait, … I’m just not there yet. Let me see the second Chipmunks movie first.