by Karen Frazier, Managing Editor
Paranormal Underground e-Magazine

Is everything that we experience predetermined, or is it all just random and chaotic? This is the question facing MIT astrophysicist John Koestler (Nicholas Cage) when his son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury) receives a page filled with numbers from a school time capsule project.

The page of numbers was placed in the capsule 50 years earlier by nine-year-old Lucinda Embry, who, quite frankly, seems a bit tetched….

Koestler has a lot of reason to believe that chaos rules the day, not predeterminism. His wife is dead. He is estranged from his father. He spends his evenings after putting Caleb to bed drinking and staring ominously into space.

That all changes, however, when Koestler gets a better look at the numbers and recognizes the numbers 9/11/2001 and the number 2996 (the number of people who died in the World Trade Center). As he delves further into the numbers, he realizes that many major disasters and their actual death toll are predicted in the numbers written by a little girl, 50 years ago.

What follows is a mystery, wrapped in an enigma. Caleb begins to hear strange whispers and have frightening visions. Strange men hang out in the woods outside of the Koestler’s (seriously cool) house. Polished stones show up in unexpected places.

As Koestler unravels the mystery of the numbers and chases down the two dates remaining on the list, his belief system changes from chaos to predeterminism.

The move is atmospheric and has some seriously cool special effects. Alex Proyas’s directing is brilliant in places – creating a moody atmosphere that builds tension and keeps you guessing.

In the end, however, I couldn’t help but feel that the movie tries to touch on too many themes. It seems as if Knowing tries to be all things to all people, and inevitably leaves plot holes unfilled.

That doesn’t mean the movie isn’t worth a go see. If nothing else, go for Proyas’s masterful directing. That alone makes the movie time and money well-spent.