By his own admission, Nicolas Cage has starred in some truly horrendous movies, the majority of which came during his descent into the VOD doldrums. On the other hand, Knowing scored a wide theatrical release and hauled in $215 million at the box office on a $50 million budget, an impressive feat given its phenomenally stupid ending.
The concept is a strong one, with the Academy Award winner playing a professor who discovers a document buried in a time capsule half a century previously. From there, he discovers the mysterious tome has predicted every single major disaster to have happened ever since, and there’s one more on the cards that marks the end of all life as we know it.
For two-thirds of its running time, Knowing does a stellar job of engaging audiences with its twists and turns, lulling everyone into the false sense of security that it was a sci-fi mystery thriller. However, the ending then decides that going completely and utterly of the rails is the best course of action, with the final few minutes jaw-dropping in its sheer stupidity.
It’s been a bone of contention for almost 15 years, not that you’d be able to tell after FlixPatrol outed the thunderously boneheaded tale as one of the most popular hits on Netflix this week. Some people genuinely think the finale pulled off an unexpected twist you’d never see coming based on everything that happened up until that point, but it would be fair to say those folks are in the minority.