Knowing

Proyas has mastered the craft perfectly, but this skill is absolutely useless when he has to deal with a completely trivial script that drags the plot through the morass of the cheapest clichés. Then the director himself becomes a problem, as two pivotal scenes (by the way, letting them get on the internet was a major mistake) seem to have come out of a completely different film. Then there are the horror sequences, which perfectly battle with the cheap remainder of the film, overstuffed with warped family relationships and long-winded scientific theories. It’s a film that’s perfect in its individual parts, but as a whole, it’s... disappointing. PS: (06/26/2009)

Most of the time I thought that critics had hurt Knowing, because it is a thrilling and suggestive disaster film that surpasses its even more expensive colleagues thanks to Proyas' directing and great visuals. However, the biblical finale turns the tolerable ridiculousness into something very close to farce. One tends to forgive disaster films their plot holes and the strange (un)motivation of the characters, but the moment the creators hit you with heavy metaphysical calibers, you can now veto the tolerance. Knowing clearly suffers from ambitions that were too high. If it had stayed more grounded, it would be amongst the top films of the genre. Nicolas Cage saying a sentence like "how do I save the world?" would be a problem even in a much better-thought-out film. [65%] (07/15/2009)

You know those movies that have a brilliant theme but kind of a stupid screenplay? Well, this is one of them. Luckily, Proyas is such an expert that he brings absolutely everything to really important scenes. The disasters that happen are each more delicious than the last and are filmed in such a way that you won't know which one you liked better. Cage kind of pissed me off that he stole such a good movie from someone who isn’t going through a bad acting period (though he tried quite hard here) and I was wondering why not try to cast Kiefer Sutherland or Tom Hanks? Mainly, it would have been better to re-cast the screenwriters. However, at the end I was fully absorbed and I was just watching to see what the hell was going on. Atmospheric science fiction which brings one possible answer to the basic question: "Why?". (06/21/2009)

When watching Knowing, I couldn't help but compare it to a similar film, The Mothman Prophecies, which is firmly situated in the mystery genre - unlike Knowing, which is genre-wise much broader, but essentially it is "bastardized sci-fi," which should be much dearer to me as a fan of the genre. Surprisingly, and I emphasize that I don't consider The Mothman Prophecies a film gem in any way. It's nice that Proyas has decent craftsmanship and tries to create the right atmosphere, but at the same time, he heavily copies from successful films of the past and relies on the most banal and naive ideas about encountering extraterrestrial intelligence. The combination of Close Encounters of the Third Kind with People from Space doesn't appeal to me much, not to mention that at times (e.g., in shots from the alien world or when the camera zooms in on the detail of the American flag waving in the wind), the director slides into blatant kitsch. The script is similar to the directing, in that it steals a lot and routinely puts it together. A separate chapter is Cage's performance. I'm not one of those who sharpen their wit on the topic of his current roles, mainly because most of his titles in recent years fall outside my interest, but his alternating roughly four expressions, with the frightened and stunned one prevailing, really got on my nerves. All in all, the destruction of the world according to Proyas doesn't seem smarter than according to Emmerich, nor is it more entertaining. Overall impression: 40%. (05/02/2013)

Thrilling atmosphere and visual effects. Proyas is one of the few directors who knows how to utilize the technical aspects of a film to the fullest, which means not only as a showcase of current technologies, but as a fully-fledged plot attribute. The solid beginning is unfortunately marred the quite clumsy ending – a blend of kitsch and pathos – and at times I even felt that the director didn't know where to go. In the last minutes, it was quite a mess. Knowing could have turned out much better. Cage is bearable after a long time, even in a non-action role. (01/02/2010)