I feel that Alex Proyas is a good example of what the Hollywood machinery can do (for the worse) with a very interesting director who had achieved magnificent artistic results, with the great Dark City.
The last movie of projects was I robot, starring the stellar Will Smith and based on the novel by Asimov, which swept the box office and was a worthy entertainment product. A few years later comes Knowing, a tape that brings together Nicolas Cage, Chandler Canterbury and Rose Byrne as the central protagonists of this end-of-the-world story.
With screenplay by Ryne Douglas Pearson, Juliet Snowden and Stiles White, the plot of Knowing revolves around the probabilities and chance (or destiny) that rule the world. Cage plays a somewhat alcoholic widower who faces the tough task of raising his young son. The conflict opens from a letter written 50 years ago, full of numbers without (apparent) meaning, which the child receives at his school.
These numbers come to the hand ofhe father, who in a sleepless night, discovers that these numbers represent dates of disasters that have occurred in the last 50 years in the United States. And the most interesting, there are a couple that have not happened yet. Back then the character will discover what is hidden behind this prophecy, in addition to witnessing the disasters that, it must be said, are excellently well made and filmed.
The film, with its licenses and whims, manages to trap until some mysterious characters enter the scene who stalk the widower's son. The decision to include this route makes the film out of tune in several passages, added to almost ridiculous situations, which no one would believe.
The ending, with certain religious connotations, makes Knowing finish consecrating as the most insipid and depersonalized work of Proyas.