Knowing (2009)

Now, this is a film starring Nichols Cage so my expectations were not high and I very nearly didn’t even start watching knowing that he was in it! Did you see what I did there? I got past my prejudice and started to watch. It’s a convoluted story about a school child who writes down a load of numbers 50 years ago instead of a drawing of the future (like the rest of the class), which all get buried in a time capsule. 50 Years later the capsule is opened and Cage’s son, called Caleb, is given the envelope with all the numbers in it. He takes it home wrongly. Cage as a father isn’t much good. He hasn’t got over the death of his wife and drinks heavily. So, what does he do but pick up the sheet of numbers and start analysing it! All night, he doesn’t even sleep. He connects series of numbers to major accidents that have happened around the world. It’s strange and hedoesn’t know what to do with it. It seems to predict something will happen in the future. He tries to prevent a couple of major accidents that just happen to be near where he lives. He narrowly misses getting killed by a large airliner crashing into the ground. Then he is involved in runaway subwa train derailment and crash. It gets worse but you’ve already probably lost the point. There is no point. The Earth is going to be incinerated by a solar flare and his son (with his new friend female friend: don’t ask!) are taken by aliens who have been trying to tell them the whole time. Fanciful, pointless twaddle. There is. No reason anyone should watch this film.