Knowing (2009)

“Knowing” is forgetting. In 1958 Massachusetts, a frantic girl scribbles seemingly random numbers on a sheet of paper that is then placed inside a time capsule that is dug up 50 years later by another group of children, one of whom is the son of an MIT professor (Nicolas Cage). Widowed, drunk, and sure that God is dead, our troubled hero stumbles upon a code in the numbers -– it marks the date, map location, and death toll of every disaster since ’58 until the end. As in End of Times. Director Alex Proyas (“Dark City” and “I am Legend”) has served up a dark Christian apocalypse thriller with no way out, and if you go for angel starships and religion-heavy films that drop 9/11 tragedy and people burning to death with barely a shrug, and that God naturally only saves white American children, then have at. Not me. This is not deep or knowing, and it does not dare question what kind of god plays this cruel. Stupidity abounds. Dig the scene where Cage uses a magic ID card stamped “Academic” to get by the police. Really?!? Where can I and my wife get that? C-