Welcome back to Movie Recaps.
Today I will show you an action, drama, sci-fi film from 2009, titled Knowing.
Spoilers ahead!
Watch out and take care.
The year is 1959.
Lucinda is in the yard of her school, but unlike the other students, she seems troubled.
The teacher, Miss Taylor, calls the children back to the classroom, but she doesn't hear
her.
When they settle in the classroom, Miss Taylor tells the class that Lucinda's idea for the
time capsule has been chosen as the one they'll do.
She tells the children to draw something, but when she comes to collect Lucinda's work
she sees the girl scribbling down numbers like she's possessed.
The teacher grabs her paper before she's done and collects the rest.
Later, the principal is announcing that the time capsule with the student's works will
be opened in 50 years, then the capsule is lowered into a hole.
Miss Taylor looks behind her and sees Lucinda, but the second time she turns around, the
girl is gone.
They search for her well into the night and Miss Taylor finds her hiding in a closet.
Her fingers are bloodied because she's been scratching numbers in the door.
Lucinda keeps begging Miss Taylor to make the voices in her head stop whispering.
Fifty years later, John is looking through a telescope and tells his son, Caleb, to come
and take a look at Saturn's rings.
The boy asks him if somebody has found life on other planets, but John tells him that
it's just us for now.
However, when Caleb asks how many planets can potentially host life, John explains the
"Goldilocks zone" idea to him, but the boy already knows it.
Caleb runs to his room to watch TV and John comes in later, to tell him to go to sleep
because he has class tomorrow.
Caleb reminds him that it's the 50th anniversary of the school and that he won't have any classes.
John tells Caleb that by "just us" he didn't include the idea of an afterlife, which is
a sensitive subject for the boy because he lost his mother the previous year.
Before John leaves, he tucks Caleb in and tells him that he loves him.
Later, he drinks himself to sleep while thinking about his wife.
John works at MIT as a professor of astrophysics.
The lecture he is giving reflects the main philosophical problem of the film, the subject
of randomness versus determinism in the Universe.
He goes back to the idea of the "Goldilocks zone" with his students, to explain the two
sides of the argument, the one being the side of order and purpose, and the other that of
coincidence.
When pressed by the students about his position on the matter, John says he believes that
stuff just happens.
His friend, Phil, the cosmologist, tells him that he hit the students with a heavy subject
for a Monday, then walks him out, chatting about some date he wants to set him up with.
Suddenly, John remembers his son's ceremony at school and arrives there a bit late, but
still catches Ben singing in the school choir.
Later, an aged Miss Taylor cuts the ribbon to the time capsule and they take it out of
the ground.
When they open it, she is the one to divide the envelopes among the children.
Miss Taylor hands Caleb Lucinda's envelope and the boy goes aside to open it.
The moment he does and sees the numbers, he notices a mysterious figure looking at him,
while hearing whispers in his ears.
That night, John is doing the dishes when the boy asks him if he can go to a sleepover
at a friend's house that weekend and John says that he'll think about it.
He notices that the boy has taken Lucinda's work and tells him to return it the next day.
After his son has fallen asleep watching a video of his mom, John goes back to the kitchen
and takes another look at the numbers.
He writes a sequence on a whiteboard because it feels familiar to him.
John blocks out the date - 9/11/2001 and a second number - 2996 from it.
He researches the tragedy of 9/11 and sees that there were 2996 victims.
John copies the numbers to a whiteboard and begins checking for other dates.
He notices a pattern of dates and victims that stand for catastrophes that have transpired
over the last fifty years.
The next day, John goes to tell Phil about his theory regarding Lucinda's sequence of
numbers.
John is aware of how he sounds like but still explains that he matched the numbers to the
dates of every major global disaster, except for the last three.
The first of the unaccounted numbers states that the next day 81 people will die in a
tragedy.
Phil says that it sounds crazy and no matter how angry John gets, he tells him that it's
easy to find what you want in sequences of numbers.
He argues for that statement by pointing out the uncircled numbers on the screen.
John gets upset with him and leaves, then goes to talk to Miss Taylor.
She tells him about Lucinda and the day they buried the time capsule as the day when she
found her scratching at the door.
Miss Taylor says they never found out what the numbers meant.
John asks her if she can tell him where to find Lucinda, but she tells him that Lucinda
passed away years ago.
Back at his house, John is still trying to figure out the details surrounding the envelopes,
when Caleb gets a strange visit while he's playing.
The same mysterious figure appears in a car and gives the boy a black stone.
John sees the transaction from the window and runs out to stop it, but the car drives
off.
John's sister scares him half to death when she comes to visit the two of them.
She's worried about them and offers to babysit Caleb if John wants to go out sometime.
John knows that she was sent there by his parents with whom he has a difficult relationship,
especially with his pastor father.
After some bickering, John gets his sister out of his house.
That night, he falls asleep drinking and watching the news, waiting to hear anything about a
possible accident with 81 victims.
John doesn't notice Caleb looking at him from the stairs, feeling alienated from his dad.
John is woken up by the phone ringing with Caleb asking him why he isn't there to pick
him up from school.
He tells him that he'll be there in 10 minutes, but gets stuck in traffic on the way.
Searching for alternate routes to the school on his GPS, John realizes that the unidentified
numbers from Lucinda's paper are actually locations.
His location at the moment is the location next to the number implying that an accident
will happen on that day.
John gets out of the car to see if what's holding up traffic is actually an accident,
but finds out that no one died on the road.
An officer tells him to get back to his car when suddenly an airplane comes plummeting
from the sky and crashes down in the neighboring field.
John immediately runs toward the burning debris, without regard for his own safety, trying
to help the people from the plane.
He extinguishes one man when another part of the vessel explodes, then goes over to
help a screaming woman, who runs away in a panic.
John doesn't manage to save a burning man but pulls out another one from the plane debris
when paramedics arrive and get him away from the victim.
He comes back home to his sister listening to the news about the accident that took 81
lives.
She sends Caleb upstairs so she could talk to John, but he just goes up to sleep.
Caleb is worried about him and asks him what's going on, aware that something bad has happened,
but John doesn't know what to tell his son.
Later, Phil comes over to check up on him and they talk about the numbers again.
John doesn't think it's an accident that he was there at that moment and Phil begins to
believe that the numbers might mean something, but still isn't fully convinced.
There are two more numbers in the sequence that John thinks stands for accidents that
are about to happen, as a kind of warning meant for him.
When Phil leaves, the mysterious figure appears near John's house again.
It comes into Caleb's room and shows him that something absolutely awful will happen in
the future, a world on fire.
The child screams in terror and John finds him crying on the floor, thinking he had a
bad dream, but sees the figure outside and runs after him, telling him to stay away.
The following morning, John finds Lucinda's home and sees her daughter and granddaughter
leave the house.
He follows them with Caleb to a natural history museum and once they get inside he tells Caleb
to make friends with the granddaughter, Abby.
John uses that as a way to talk to Lucinda's daughter, Diana, and asks the two of them
to join him and Caleb for a drink in the museum cafe.
As the kids play, the two of them chat a bit, until John decides to tell Diana why he wanted
to talk to her.
John asks Diana if her mother had some kind of ability or gift and tells her that he's
an MIT professor, that his son went to the same school as her mother and that's where
he found the paper with the numbers.
He thinks that there are people like her mother who can see things happening before they actually
do.
Diana gets upset and calls for Abby, so John tells her about the plane accident and how
the date and location were predicted on that piece of paper.
John wants to prevent whatever will happen tomorrow and again on the 19th of October,
but he wants her help.
Diana will have nothing of it and leaves with Abby.
John follows her out again and begs for her help because he thinks that it all has something
to do with Caleb, putting him in some sort of danger.
She tells him that she can't help.
That night, John looks through the instructions for the gun he bought and hears a news report
about a possible terrorist plot to bomb one of the major cities.
Meanwhile, a group of mysterious figures looks over their house from the woods.
John finds the location from the numbers and goes to a payphone to inform the FBI in New
York where the suspected terrorist attack will happen tomorrow.
Early next morning, John drops off Caleb at his sister's place and says goodbye to the
boy.
His sister hugs him, aware that he isn't telling her everything and John tells her not to let
Caleb watch the news.
Next, he goes into New York to see if the FBI has done anything about what he told them.
John sees an officer and asks about it, but suddenly more officers chase after him thinking
he's a potential perp.
He runs away into the crowded subway when he sees a man looking suspicious.
John chases after him and they both get on the subway train.
The subway security gets a call from the police about John and they start chasing after the
two of them as well.
The crazy chase continues inside the crowded subway train when John sees a woman with a
baby and tells her to get off the train.
They get to the back of the car where there is no place to go anymore as the security
steps inside the car as well.
John tells them that they have to stop the guy, who's trying to get out of the train.
When the man turns around stolen DVDs fall out of his coat so he says that he won't do
it again and give those back.
The doors close and the train begins to move.
Suddenly, another train in the same subway line gets off the tracks and hurls toward
John's train.
He sees it coming and screams for the people to move back and get out before it hits.
The runaway train wreaks havoc on the entire subway, smashing through polls and people
eventually stopping at the stairs.
Firemen are seen leading people out of the subway station and John comes out of the chaos,
burdened by the fact he couldn't save the people or prevent the tragedy from happening.
After he picks up Caleb from his sister's, John comes home to find Diana waiting for
them there with Abby.
Caleb brings the girl inside the house and Diana immediately tells John what her mother
has told her about October the 19th.
She says that Lucinda used to talk about that date all the time because she was convinced
it will be the day Diana will die.
In the next shot, we see the four of them driving to Lucinda's house.
The kids are asleep in the back so Diana can openly share that she doesn't want to believe
that anyone can predict her future, moreover, she doesn't want to know what her future holds.
John tells her about the fire that killed his wife and when he saw the date on the page,
he instantly wondered if he had gotten it one year earlier, would he have been able
to change what happened.
His reason behind trying to stop the tragedies from happening is knowing if he would've been
able to help her.
Getting the page with the numbers has made him question if things do happen in a predetermined
way, unlike he thought they did before.
They get to the secluded house and leave the children in the car while they go inside to
find anything that might help them.
Before they go in, Diana reads the final writing on the page and says that it isn't 33, but
an E.E. written backward.
Inside the house, Diana tells John that her whole life she believed that he mother was
sick and that she moved to the woods to get ready for something.
They enter Lucinda's study and find newspaper clippings from tragedies around the world
and a drawing from the bible which Diana takes with them.
Next, they go into her room where John finds another of the black stones.
Meanwhile, Caleb wakes up and sees the mysterious figures approaching the car.
John finds more of the stones under her bed and lifts it up only to find the words "everyone
else" scratched into it.
He realizes that E.E. stands for that.
The mysterious figures are almost at the car so Caleb honks, prompting Diana and John to
go out after them.
When they arrive, Caleb tells his father about the figures.
He says that they were talking to them all at once when Abby tells them that the figures
said they could come with them if they chose to.
John sees one of the figures and goes after him through the woods, but when he finds him,
he has a very unpleasant experience with him.
They get back to John's house and both he and Diana think that the figures have been
following them for days.
John tells her that Lucinda could see the end of everything, but she doesn't believe
it still.
She's afraid for her daughter and so is John.
The following morning John comes up to Abby, who's coloring the picture from her grandmother's
house and when he sees it, he gets an idea he needs to check at the observatory.
When they get there, Phil follows him to a lab where John looks for his research on solar
flares.
John thinks that the numbers are a warning to everyone about a solar super-flare that
can wipe out all living things from the planet.
He thinks that the appropriate institutions already know and the announcement will come
soon.
John wonders how he is supposed to stop the end of the world and tells Phil to go home
to his wife.
He goes after Diana who thinks that if they go underground, they might have a chance,
so she suggests some underground caves where she used to play as a child.
John agrees and in the next scene, they are back at the house, packing supplies.
He finally opens his wife's present to him and finds a locket with a picture of them
inside.
Next, he calls his dad to say goodbye and to tell him about the coming apocalypse.
His father tells him that if God thinks it's his time, then he will go and won't try to
outrun the apocalypse.
When they hang up, John goes to fetch Caleb and finds him writing numbers down.
When he takes away the paper, the kid continues to write on the table and when he takes away
his pen, Caleb scratches on it.
Suddenly, John gets the idea to look for the door Miss Taylor told him about.
He breaks into the school, unhinges the door, and takes it back to the house.
Diana tells him that they need to go to the caves and he tells her that they're not going
there while he tries to get the paint off the door.
John thinks that the numbers her mother scratched on the door are the location where they need
to go.
Meanwhile, Diana gets the kids and drives away with them, telling Caleb that his dad
will follow them there.
John finds the location and when he goes out to tell Diana the news, he sees that they've
already left so he gets to his car and drives off.
In the car, Abby tells her mom that the figures know where they are and she knows that because
they whisper to them.
Diana freaks out.
She stops at a gas station and while she listens to the emergency broadcast on the TV, Caleb
calls John.
Diana finds him on the phone and tells John where they are going, apologizing for taking
Caleb.
He tells her that the numbers are the location of her mother's home and that they need to
go there, but she says no.
Suddenly, Diana sees a black stone on the payphone and when she turns around, she sees
the figures driving off with the children.
She steals a car and immediately goes after them.
Unfortunately, during her chase, Diana gets rammed by a truck.
John eventually finds her in an ambulance on the road and she dies when the clock strikes
midnight.
He says goodbye to her, then goes to her mother's home, hoping to find the kids there.
John sees tire tracks and follows them into the woods to Diana's abandoned car.
He leaves the car and calls for Caleb when he sees one of the figures.
Caleb runs out to him and tells him that he's ok when more figures appear.
John says that they have to go, but his son says they need to go with the figures.
Abby appears, telling John that they won't hurt them.
The kids tell him that the figures have been protecting them the entire time and that the
message they sent ahead was to prepare the way.
Caleb and Abby are part of the chosen ones that get to be saved by the aliens.
Suddenly, a massive alien spacecraft appears in the sky, shocking John.
Caleb thinks that the three of them can go on the ship, but the alien makes it clear
that it's only the children.
John realizes that if he wants his son to be saved, he must let him go with the aliens.
He says goodbye to his son and gives him the locket, saying that one day he'll find out
what it means.
They embrace, then the boy goes with the aliens who transform into their original form and
lift the children up to the ship.
The spacecraft leaves the planet as John stares in awe and sorrow.
More than one ship can be seen leaving Earth and taking the chosen ones to some unknown
corner of the Universe.
The following day, John goes back to his father's home to wait for the apocalypse with his family
that couldn't leave with the aliens.
The super-flare tears through the planet, destroying all life as we know it.
In the final image of the film, the kids can be seen in another world, running towards
a three.