Movie Review: Knowing

 In this episode, we'll be discussing the 2009 science fiction film "Knowing."

Starring Nicolas Cage, "Knowing" follows a widowed astrophysicist who discovers a set of numbers that predict major global disasters. As he becomes increasingly obsessed with the mystery behind the numbers, he uncovers a shocking revelation that challenges his beliefs about the nature of the universe and human existence.

Throughout the episode, we'll examine the film's exploration of determinism and free will, its portrayal of grief and loss, and its unique take on apocalyptic themes. We'll also discuss the film's strengths, such as its compelling visual effects, thought-provoking plot, and strong performances by the cast.

At the same time, we'll also delve into the film's weaknesses, such as its plot holes, uneven pacing, and occasional reliance on clichéd genre tropes. While opinions about the film may vary, we'll provide a balanced analysis that acknowledges both its strengths and weaknesses.

So, whether you're a fan of "Knowing" or simply curious to learn more about this intriguing sci-fi film, join us for this episode as we examine its themes and meanings, and explore its strengths and weaknesses.

Want more of Second Emulation? Stay connected with us by following our social media channels!

Find us on Twitter at @SecondEmulation and on Instagram at @secondemulationpod.

For film reviews and recommendations, check out our profile on Letterboxd at https://letterboxd.com/SecondEmulation/

Catch our live streams and gaming content on Twitch by following us at https://www.twitch.tv/arc_veritas31.

Don't miss out on exclusive updates, behind-the-scenes content, and engaging discussions. Follow us now!

Transcript

  📍 Welcome to Second Emulation, the podcast that explores all things pop culture, from movies and TV shows to the latest anime releases. Join us as we dive into the world of entertainment, sharing our thoughts, opinions, and insights on the latest trends and releases. With a focus on what's hot and what's not, we're your go-to source for all things pop culture. So sit back, relax, and let's get started

  All right, so, oh, hey everybody. Hello again. So this movie we watched is called The Knowing and Nick Cage, the next movie in our Nick Cage in the multiverse. And so the title is a little misleading, and the synopsis is also gonna be misleading. I'm gonna turn over to  Kiley, who's gonna give you kind of like a summary.
Of what the movie's about in my own 

words, not from the, the summary that's listed online because it doesn't make much sense.  The movie  the Knowing is directed by Alex PIOs and it stars Nicholas Cage and actually  rose Byrne before she was a super big actress as well.  It was made in 2009 and Nicholas Cage, actually, I think it's called Knowing, not the Knowing, but I keep calling it the knowing.

 Nicholas Cage plays, what is it? A teacher and a. Son.  He has a son who wears a hearing aid, right? And basically  he opens a time capsule that was buried 50 years before and he finds  a piece of paper and he like, looks at the paper and is able to decipher that all of the, the biggest. Or not even biggest, but there's catastrophe dates on there and like the total, when the catastrophe took place, how many people died in like the location.

 And he's able to start matching it up with like nine 11 and, and certain things that happened when like planes went missing and plane crashes. And he's able to decipher that, like two more events. I think one, one is a plane crash and one is a  a train crash in New York  where he, it's confirmed that the, it's predicting the future.

 And then there's one where he ends up. It, it's a convoluted story, but Rose Burn plays the daughter of the girl who predicted this as a child. And so they work together to try to figure out what the last date means, and it just means it's the end of the world for everybody. And in between that he's trying to save the world.

Then his son, there's aliens. It doesn't make any sense. You think you're, you think you're watching a movie like the day after tomorrow, and then it's kind of war of the World. See? With like underworld vampires thrown in. That's what it felt like to me. 
Yeah.  And the synopsis she gave was, was Spark Notes at best.

Yeah. Because clearly you're, you're greeted with essentially like the tone of the movie of just, you know, And when she says school, it's an elementary school, 50 years happy-go-lucky. And there's a girl who's doom and gloom writing numbers. 
Yeah. Hearing voices, 
writing voices, hearing voices. And so she puts this paper in, you know, and then as mentioned  Nicholas Cage's son, you know, they're handing him out.

So for those who don't know, time capsules were like a. A big thing when we were growing up, or that it's something to like, for the future generation would pick up how time was, you know, what messages did you wanna leave for the future 
generation. Yeah. And you couldn't even do 'em for yourself or your family and open them at a later date.

Yeah. And they were just like, you know, kind of like what ideas of, you know, The past people in the past thought, or did those  you know, were they, you know, come true and, you know, they were like, you know, drawings and things of that nature or keepsakes. And so the sun just gets a random letter of numbers and it just goes into this warm hole of just predicting  numbers.

But what we don't know or what we kind of see is that Nick. Cages.  The dad, he's a scientist who like predicts. He's also a teacher. Yeah. He's a teacher at and looks like 
an ex, like an elementary school or something, or a smart school or, no, I can't, honestly, I'm, can I tell you this movie had me checked out so quickly.
I, he's a teacher. That's what I know. 

He's a professor for what looks like  I guess astronomy or space navigation, but he's. He's talking about like relatively how everything happens for a reason and nothing is like out of, out of an ordinary. Like, you know, there's a reason we exist and that there's a reason why we're here.

Everything has an order. Nothing is, you know, preordained. And so he's one of those people. And so he gets this number, he finds the letter that his son has and he, you know, He, he sees it, but then he starts to see the pattern and then he goes down his worm hole and then he starts matching it to like events that have already happened.
And, you know, it seems to be like a coincidence. We're like, okay, well this is like the plot. Like, alright, cool, maybe you know, we've prior movies before we. Where someone has like a precog, which is like a psychic ability to predict the future, maybe leaving a message like I may not be around to pre, to prevent these things.

Yeah. So I'm leaving a message that somehow someone will obtain this and then maybe stop the event on my behalf. And you know, this girl who doesn't know the information on overload. You know, she dis and more context is that after they, they take the notes, they bury it, she disappears, and you know, they find her, she's still getting these whispers or this information and she's like in the school writing in her blood because her fingernails are, you know, Ben, you know, peeled off.

Torn off because she's trying to write the information. They get into further context about that later on. It just stops. So we, we don't know what happens to her. 
There's just many threads on this movie.  And that's one thread is the person who made the predictions. You later find out that the whispering she heard was from the aliens and not like a spiritual thing.

So the aliens were giving her this information. To warn her, I guess, but not everyone, because only the people who heard them were going to be saved anyway. Not everyone. So I don't, I don't understand it. But long story short  what were your favorite scenes?

It is hard to choose a favorite scene in this movie because,
They were just all bad. I can say what my bad favorite scene is, is going to be the, there's a moment in the film where the soul call, we're calling 'em the aliens. Oh, 
they're called the whispers on the movie. I think 
the, the whispers. Slash aliens, they somehow breach or they're, so, once his son, you know, he's been exposed to this letter, I guess he starts getting this information and he starts hearing the whispers.

And so now the, the dub aliens called the Whisper IRVs start making contact with him and. There's a scene where they just show up in the sun's room. They, there's no force entry. They just, you know, enter quietly. They show the sun a vision of. You know what's going to happen around, and the sun just freaks out, you know, which forces Nick Cage to just book it all the way to his son's room and you know, and something was like someone was here, someone was here.

And the first thing he does is he grabs a bat, runs out. And, you know, he sees the person cuz he's almost like a floor. He sees the person that was there, as I forget to mention, as he grabs the bat, runs down and, and is attempt to chase the person out. And then he threatens by hitting a tree and he is like, do you want some of this?
You want some of this? And hence the tree, ba ba you know? And the reason why I call this my favorite bad scene, because after this, They go to the next day and no one calls the police. This man does not call the police and file a police report. He does not change the locks. On his door or decide to, maybe I need to move my family to a different location.

Yeah, he doesn't leave. I would say the police are not reliable, but in movie world they tend to predict them better and yeah, he doesn't do, he doesn't do anything that you would think your natural reaction would be, which would be 
like, comment, like comments. He's like, it's fine. We're safe. And I your left scratching your head like this is not common sense.
Like any person in this situation who just had a breaking and entering would be afraid for your life, especially if you are a parent. You know, but Nick Cage, like the rules don't apply to me. I'm Nick Cage. 

I also love how in movies like this, the adults are always like, we're gonna be okay. Do they just say it?
Even if they don't believe it? And I'm like, I get it. But also if it was me, I'd be like, listen, I don't know how this is gonna turn out. So we need to be careful. Not it's gonna be okay. I don't know if it's gonna be okay. You don't even know what you're, he doesn't even know what he's facing. 
Yeah. And. And for those I, because, so I don't keep calling 'em Nick Cage and the son, the son's character's name is Caleb and Nick Cage's  name is John, so I'll keep, oh, see, 
I 
didn't even remember that.
I just, so, 
and his  Caleb is deaf and has a hearing aid. Partially deaf. Yeah, partially deaf. So he has a hearing aid, so, That's even like more of an indicator that someone could sneak up on him. So it's, yeah, it was like, I was just frustrated yelling at the tv. I was like, come on. 
It was also a very long movie for all these plots.
I, it was giving me the  The quiet place vibes cuz the, the sun had the hearing aids and they would go off when the whispers were around. But also  the day after tomorrow, war of the Worlds and like  you know, ghost movie vibes. It just had a lot of threads that there were, that there were there.  So many that were unnecessary.
Like they talk about his relationship.  Johns. Nicholas Cage's relationship with his father and how that's not good. His wife previously died. He's still dealing with that, like just a bunch of different threads that don't, they're kind of half-hearted.  And I would just say that the end is like anti-climactic, really, because they, they, the aliens come, they only take the people who hear the whispers.

So he, they take his, they take Caleb and they take Rose Burn's daughter, and they take them on a spaceship with other people, and then they bring them to another world that looks like Earth and set them free there. And it's just like, I will talk about that when I talk about weak areas of the movie. I, my favorite scene is when he chases after them and they look like  like Scandinavian  Swedish vampires.
From the Underworld movie series, and he is like shouting at them, but they don't talk. And all of a sudden one just opens his mouth, like the girl in the grudge and  or the boy in the, whoever that, that ghost is in the grudge and a shining light just comes out and blinds Nicholas cage and then they disappear.

But they're like wa They're like running, walking, not even running. They, 
they have the Michael Myers slow walk. Yeah, that's, that was very kind of confusing because here is John full sprint. Which those happen to be my favorite scenes. It's just when he's giving chase to these creatures aliens, and every time he's having an encounter with them, he's full sprinting.
And these whispered ones are just bristly, just walking, and they're just out outpacing him. And, and he's just gasping for breath. Yeah. Trying to keep up. I'm like, cool. It, John, you, you're going, you're going to, your heart's gonna give out at some point. Some 
point. Also, I think, I think this movie was Peak Nicholas Cage's Bad acting peak.
I mean, he has, he's either, in my opinion, very good or not Very good. He's either good, bad, or just bad, bad. In  in the movies that he's in. And this one was just bad, bad. Like all of his acting just was too over the top. Didn't make sense. Not for the movie. Anyway, it, it just, I don't have very many favorite scenes because I didn't really enjoy the movie.

I thought the end was anti claim acting.  I thought it started off strong with a girl and then it just didn't make sense. After that. 
My, my favorite scene would just be the, the setup like, The setup, the beginning of the movie would be the favorite scene of how it set everything up. Yeah. And then cuz it, it showed you  Lucinda, who was the girl  who was, who's Rose Burn's mom?
Who's Rose Burn's mom, who was setting up like  she was the one who was  writing the numbers to mm-hmm. To, that was going to be in the time capsule. And so  That initial setup was fine, so we knew what, you know, what kind of like, you know, the, the ploy and the plot. That initial setup was great, but then after that was just a downhill, so my favorite scene was the, the beginning leading up to that, you know, you know, when they, you know, put everything, all the letters into.

The capsule and they buried the capsule. And then, you know, Lucinda missing and kind of seeing like, okay, well something's plaguing her, which we assume they were gonna go into more, you know, more detail. And then they pivot to like, present day, 50 years, we're gonna open it. So that part was my favorite scene.
And then just after that it was a dumpster 
fire. Yeah, it was a good premise.  A good start. It just didn't follow through. And there were too many, too many. This is a perfect shining example. Too many people pitched too many ideas and they all got let in.  You know, it, that's, I would say that's one of the weak areas of the movie.

I would also say another weak area, since we both don't have very many favorites, is  This, the idea that these aliens would want to save us. I just can't anticipate that these aliens would watch us destroy the world for like the entire existence of humans and then would give us hints on when these catastrophes are gonna happen, but still wanna save us and bring us to another planet.

But not all of us, just the ones who hear them, like I don't, it's, that doesn't even make sense to me. That part was never explained either. And. They don't explain how like these aliens found  a planet similar to Earth that they knew we would survive on. Like they clearly are existing somewhere else. It just, none of it's explained.
None of it makes sense.  Yeah, it's just weird. 
 One of the weak areas is that it was a combining of, you know  science and religion. Yeah. That there was a lot of scientific and religion undertones, which, because his 
dad was a, was a priest, 
his dad was a priest. So it was a lot of like, you know, melding of the two of like philosophy and science, you know, and faith.
And then, you know, you know, angels. And philosophers. So it was a lot of that melding in there and was very confusing. And bringing it back to your point, you mentioned like why would first off aliens would send a message for, to save our planet now, not to save our planet, but to save us. 
Yeah. Not saving 
our planet at all.

 To save.  I select few people more kinda like a Noah's arc 
situation. Yeah. I got very Noah's arc  vibes 
and then, you know, allow the planet to die off and then not even, you know, come back. Just take 'em win with people off to another planet. Only the people who heard the call. Which didn't make any sense.

Mm-hmm. And so, and what was was more confusing is that the, they, we don't, so when they, when you, when you find out what the natural disaster is, that's going to wipe everyone out and that. Lucinda was trying to get this message out, you know, and the so-called whisper ones were, you know, out here spreading the word.
You would think that they would get more people involved, like, okay, well why not try to stop it. Yeah. 
You'd 
think more people would be aware cuz she does predict things like nine 11. So I'm surprised that there was, I, I understand. I guess that it was just supposed to be proof maybe, but she couldn't have been the only one.
She, you learned. She's not the only one who heard them, so why weren't there other people who came forward or who people talked about having crazy, outlandish ideas, you know? Yeah. Like 
it, it was this whole like, Part, which is a weak area, which like so self, like it was so controlled. And then at the end when you find out there was more of them and you're like, well wait.

So it could have been a, you know, a more, you know, coordinated effort, like to save everyone. It made no sense. And then the big reveal that these Switzerland whispered aliens, When they shed their human forms look like angels. Mm-hmm. It was even more confusing. And then, you know, John, when he realizes now the other week area is that he couldn't go.

So they, the whole premise is that we find out another week area is that, Lucinda wrote all these. So going back to the beginning, Lucinda wrote all these numbers down. They're all coordinates, are all dates for natural disasters that were going to happen. You find out the last date is a natural disaster that cannot be prevented.

Yeah. And everyone dies. And everyone dies. But the last numbers that she was going, that she's writing down are coordinates that people have to get to. That people have to get to, to be saved. Everyone has to get to, but not everyone can be saved. Only those who hear the 
whispers over the call. Yeah. So like they, if they get, if John and Caleb when they get there, they think they're both safe, but they're not because it's only Caleb and Rose Burn's daughter, who, by the way, rose Burn's character ends up dying.

 While trying to protect the children, which another weird part of the movie is that her mom predicted the date she would die, that Rose Burns character. Lucinda predicted when Rose Burns character would die. And she's not at all like super concerned with it, even though she's saying that her mom's predictions are coming true.
So that was another weird part.  But yeah, they end up getting there and that's when Nick  John learns he can't go and he, he just tells Caleb to go anyway. And that's when they float up like fr like freaking angels. And it, it just did, not, didn't, it really was the epitome of, I think what you said, religion and science.

Because at the end, Nick, John, he goes home. To be with his family, his father and his mother, and his sister, and his dad is a priest. And his dad said that he didn't feel like he didn't want to try to find  safety or go underground. He just wanted to, if it was his time to go, it was his time to go. And he believed that, you know, afterwards, they, there would be a heaven to save him and John or John didn't.

And then, but at the end they were still together and I think that that's probably what the movie wanted us to see. But it was a two hour journey to nowhere and I didn't, I didn't even get that. I just got a lot of confusion. 
Yeah. There was just too many weak areas in this movie. Like you brought a, another weak area in my opinion, was too many people, and not to mention, This movie actually came out after the day.
Their earth stood still with Keanu Reeves, Keanu. So yeah, 
apocalyptic movies are really good. 
So take that with a grain of salt. If you watch that film and you watch this, You're gonna see a lot of similar similarities between the two, and I feel like the people in the writing room, which I'm considering, this is one of the weak areas, decided to take all of the ideas from that film.

Put him into a hat, add some more, pick their top five or top 10 and just, you know, we're gonna make a movie off this. We're gonna get Nick Cage. He's gonna, he's gonna be, you know, this is gonna be our day. The Ood still film. And that's what we got  the knowing because they should even change the title cuz no one knew what was going on.

Yeah. No one there and I didn't even 
know. And what was even more frustrating is that they accept another weak area. I'm just ranting at this point, was that you are  The acceptance of just letting your kid go with a sentient being that you do not know and be like, yeah, this feels right, like I'm going to die.

I'm being left here to die on this planet. But the logical common sense is that you should go, I'm trusting your life to a sentient being that. Of course never revealed itself all the time I've been here, never once has been cryptic, never said, Hey, we're trying to save people. Yeah, and it's okay for me to just, for you to take my child.
I mean, you'd have to think about it too. Of course. You, you as a parent, I imagine, not that I'll ever be a parent, but as a parent, I imagine you want your child to live past you. You don't want them to die. But also the unknown of your child going into space or wherever. You don't know where they're going to be with these beings and not having the capabilities of an adult, not saying that children aren't capable, just saying that they don't have a few, like a full scope of the world.

There's, there's less understanding there.  And you're sending a child basically to live on another planet or wherever without your guidance and without, you don't even know if there's gonna be other adult guidance, cuz I didn't see any adults get picked up in those things. So it, they could have, but I don't know.
So they only showed, 
they only showed the two 
 Two kids Yeah. At the end. But they, they showed those other pods, remember? Mm-hmm. But they didn't show who got off of them on this new planet. They just showed the kids running through the field. Which is, sure, okay, that's great. But like, how are these kids going to eat?
Well, didn't they say that they would rebuild? So wasn't they, weren't they supposed to come back to the earth? Honestly, I don't 
know. Yeah. So 
they, there were, I don't know, there were a lot of threads being pulled in this movie and they just went nowhere. 

Yeah.  I think it, we, that's a good point to go into what our final thoughts and readings.
For it are, mine is gonna be one outta 10.  I'm not gonna give it a zero because I like Rose Burn, but Rose Burn do better. She has done better since then.  I know you gotta take what you can get, but girl, this movie, woo. I'm sure it is not the crown jewel in your, you're you're acting repertoire.  And yeah, I would say one out of a 10.

Only a one because of the beginning. And for Rose Burn, Nick Cage does some peak overacting in this movie. Also, the way that the pros and cons  pros.  I don't got any pros, but I have a lot of cons.  If you want to be confused for two hours, if you want to be frustrated, if you need to get riled up for the revolution, watch this movie.
It'll, it'll push you right over the edge.  And if you wanna watch someone tell his coworker, Hey, the world's gonna end. Go be with your girlfriend and just leave him and let his friend accept it. Watch this movie. There's so little, another loose end.  This'll just, it'll, it's not the better. It's not the best part of his film.

 CATA, like his film, whatever career. Yeah. That's all I gotta say on it. I hope to never watch this movie again. 

So. I'm gonna have to agree with you. I'm gonna give it a one out of 10. Yeah.  The, the one pro was that Nick Cage was the only one. He, he, Nick Cage did the acting. For the whole cast. He was the only one holding the whole movie 
together.

Yeah, because he was overacting, he, 
he was compensating for everyone. Mm-hmm. Like that, that was it. Like he, he did it all like, so that was the only pro for it. And the con was that it was the movie. Had too much. It was just going in too many different directions.  It was just confusing. Once you get over the beginning of the, the movie, it's just, you're confused.
It. We, I thought I knew about the knowing, but I'm. I'm not sure. Sure. Anymore. And if you wanna be Yeah, I thought I knew 
and then I never, I didn't really know. And now I 
don't know. Yeah. And so if you want to be confused about a movie, watch the knowing mm-hmm. Or the, yeah. The knowing this movie would be, it's a dumpster fire to be honest.

Yeah. It's a dumpster fire. I  certainly agree with you.  Yeah, there's nothing more you can say about this film.  If anyone has thoughts, please feel free to send them my way, but I plan on never thinking about this movie again, so I agree.  I think on letterbox we have the rating pulled up. Let's see here.

 We're gonna read some customer reviews too, it looks like for the most part. It. I think people agreed with our ratings, not that they know our ratings, but the overall rating for the film was 2.6 out of five. Whoever was rating at five s, God bless you.  You found joy where no joy could be found and that, that is good for you.
You probably live a very positive life.  I. One of the favorite reviews that I had was from  Felipe. He shout out to Felipe. He gave it two and a half stars out of five, and he, I'm gonna read the first part. He said, this is actually, this is like an actually pretty good movie with a very interesting concept.

And then the ending is like, oh, you're liking this. We're here. Here's some bullshit. And that's pretty much the movie to  summed up in my opinion. 
My review's gonna be from  Jay, username. Jay shout out to Jace from Letterbox. He gave it a three star  rating.  His review's gonna be, well, now I know.
Let that sink in.

Yeah, I, I mean, I will have to agree with him. I can't say it better myself after watching this. I do. No. About the movie and I'm gonna  I think we're good to do a second  review. Yeah, go ahead and read your second one. So I'm gonna, you know, this is gonna be from not Anna Ferris who gave it a  three star boring.
Everyone else got a picture. Knowing with Nick Cage Burn and Nick Cage, but not knowing why this movie was better on rewatch, not, oh well it's a longer review, but, 
oh, okay. I was gonna say, you might wanna pick a different one, cuz that one didn't make complete sense. 

Well, I'm going. She gets an an  honorable mention.
I'm gonna read a different one.  Cause that's  so I'm gonna  give a shout out to  Jess. I think shit just happens. A young girl adds a cryptic sheet of numbers to a time capsule. 50 years later, Caleb, a young boy and the class unearthed it. Oh, that's another one. 
That's just another synopsis. Okay.

While you look at one, you didn't read one by aj Right. No. No. Okay. For mine, aj shout out to aj rated it half a star.  And he said the only thing I was left knowing for sure by the end credits was that I'll never get these last two hours back. And that is how I feel as well. I will never get that time back in my life.

What could I have done with two hours? You ask. I could have slept, I could have stared at the wall and that would've been more productive. I'm watching this movie, so do without what you will. 
All right, so we're gonna, I found another one from Andrew, so shout to Andrew from Letterbox. This movie is batshit crazy.

You know what? I agree with you. He gave it three stars. 
So that's, it's, that's all you can say. This movie is crazy. Yep. Yep. That's 
 And the ones that I've, you know, I read before since they actually gave synopsis, those are gonna be honorable mentions. So    Jess who gave it a, a half a half honorable mention and  not Anna Ferris, three stars, honorable mention.
So, yep. 

Well, I think that wraps up our conversation on this movie.  Go follow it if you feel like dying for two hours, or go watch it rather. Yeah. Oh, I lost my hand. I lost my arm. Johnny has his hand. Oh no. He lost his wife. Damn it. 
All right. Bye.

 📍 Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Second Emulation, where we explored the latest in pop culture, movies, TV shows, and anime.
If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe to the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app, and leave us a rating and review to help us reach more listeners.
And don't forget to follow us on social media for even more pop culture content and to stay up-to-date on all the latest news and releases.
As always, we welcome your feedback and suggestions for future episodes. So until next time, keep on Emulating and stay tuned for more exciting content