I am so tempted to recommend Knowing. I can’t do it—because it’s really terrible—but god, how I want to.

Knowing is the sort of bad movie that just fucking goes for it. Sometime in the third act, there’s a moment I can only describe as “transcendent”—one that just kicks the whole thing into a whole other zone of bad. It is amazing to behold—for the audience, sure, but also for star Nicolas Cage, who literally falls to his knees in shock. That’s how bad/amazing Knowing is: I never want to see it again, and I kind of love it.

Cage plays a MIT astrophysicist (okay!) whose stupid, annoying son finds a piece of paper with a bunch of numbers on it. Professor Cage realizes that the numbers prophesy every disaster of the past five decades (OMG!), and there are more catastrophes coming! So Cage teams up with some chick (Rose Byrne), who also has a stupid, annoying kid, and they all freak out, and there are also some vaguely pedophilic strangers who follow around the stupid, annoying kids, and there are also two weirdly graphic, 9/11-y disasters, and also, there is a bear and a moose and some deer! On fire! About halfway through, Cage stops acting and starts shouting, and then the thing happens, the big twist, which I will not give away here, because it is glorious.

The weird thing is, if Knowing was an old Twilight Zone episode, it could have been cool. But Dark City and I, Robot director Alex Proyas is no Rod Serling, and Knowing‘s script is so fucking stupid that all I wrote in my notes about it was “SO FUCKING STUPID.” But, perversely, I kind of respect that: Knowing is the sort of stupid that goes all the way. For its WTF final half-hour, Knowing stops being a dull, dreary thriller and becomes… god, I don’t even know. Sitting in the theater, watching it unfold, I felt like Cage—as if I were on my knees, gazing at the heavens, my mouth open in shock, my eyes open wide in euphoric disbelief.

Knowing

dir. Alex Proyas
Opens Fri March 20
Various Theaters

With honor and distinction, Erik Henriksen served as the executive editor of the Portland Mercury from 2004 to 2020. He can now be found at henriksenactual.com.

6 replies on “Disaster Movie”

  2. Why do studios keep hiring Nick Cage? He’s a good actor but hasn’t shown it for god knows how long. Does any one see these lame movies he’s been headling? NEXT? Seriously? And, Cage, no one is buying your mullet.

  4. Are you kidding me? Seriously? Mr. cooler-than-all-hell Henriksen, are you fucking kidding me?

    Please stop writing. Today. We don’t need to read your hipster “journalism” anymore. Really. This was a fascinating, risk-taker of a movie with a beautiful ending. The ending was so incredible I’m thinking of seeing it again.

    I mean, seriously? You are that cynical? Have you ever opened your mind to explore the possibility that humans may have once interpreted aliens for angels? Is it so bad to do a film on Ezekiel’s vision? Are you so bogged down here on Earth that you can’t even consider a bigger picture? And you piss on a filmmaker for taking a huge risk by exploring the idea?

    I’m not saying Nik Cage was great. He wasn’t. There was room for much improvement, sure. The script was laughable here and there. But the ending was pure magic. Yes, yes, it was. You are way too closed-minded and are way too cool for your own good. How about stepping out of trendy-as-fuck PDX for 5 seconds? Snap out of it.

  6. i love eric henricksen. he sticks his balls out there and dares that you take a wiff. thank you and please keep on keepin’ on (not written by your mother).

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