Knowing

2009, **3/4, PG-13

Starring: Nicholas Cage, Rose Byrne, Chandler Canterbury

“Knowing,” is like “The Day After Tomorrow,” meets the hit 90s series, “X-Files.” Another version of the end of the world is the Sun approaching close enough to Earth that it is incinerated. All life as we know it would burn up, and end. This is quite frightening.

This film is very disturbing and unsettling. It really makes you wonder if everything is pre-determined. In the 1950s in a small Massachusetts town, an Elementary school teacher (Danielle Carter) has her students draw a picture of what they think the future is like. One particular student writes down an entire page of numbers. The teacher put the pages in a tube and says they are creating a time capsule.

Cage (“Con Air,” “Adaptation,” “Vampire’s Kiss”) plays John Koestler a High School science teacher who is skeptical that everything is pre-determined for the future of the planet. However, when John’s son Caleb (Chandler Canterbury, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “Powder Blue”) son receives the page full of numbers at the unveiling of the 50s time capsule, he begins to think otherwise. As expected John attempts at solving this numeric mystery, which turns into much more than anyone could or would want to imagine.

I think this is one of Cage’s better films, including my favorite, “Con Air.” I also think this movie is more interesting than his National Treasure adventures. If you love Sci-Fi you may want to check it out on DVD, at least once.