So the wife and I recently rented Knowing.  You know, that one with Nicolas Cage finding a code that predicts all sorts of bad events, yada yada yada.

On one hand, it was a fairly entertaining movie until it gets near the ending.

On the other hand, it’s kind of a “comfort food” movie because the plot is about three steps behind your ability to figure out what’s going on.  There really are no surprises.  It’s all laid out for you like a cartoon of little candies leading up to a box with a string on it.  You can see it coming.  You know it’s coming.  It’s really pretty basic.  But somehow, you still get caught up in it.  Which can be good … or can be a real let down, depending on how interesting that plot may be.

Knowing had an okay plot.

I’ve seen worse.

All-in-all, because I like Nicolas Cage, and because even though I respect all religions and people’s rights to worship whatever I always get a special little kick out of things that twist Christianity’s tail, I was set to like the movie.  And I generally enjoyed the movie all the way through … until the end.

The end … just WTF!?!?!

Don’t get me wrong.  I can grasp it.  That’s not the problem.  The problem is, the movie basically seems like the writer thought of the end and worked backwards to the beginning to write it.  Which might work in some cases, but in this one, didn’t.

I really don’t want to ruin it for anyone who hasn’t seen it.  Maybe you’ll even enjoy it in spite of the ending.  But when you get to the end, I want you to do some math.  Count how many.  Now, multiply that by the at least 50 years there’s been to do something.  And think about the potentials of the technology involved when you do that math.

And then, when you’ve done that math, ask yourself, was that really an ending that makes any sense whatsoever?  Call me crazy, but seems to me like more could have easily been done, changing the entire outcome.  And would have been done, given the morality involved.

But, whatever.

So maybe you’ll like Knowing.  Or maybe you won’t.  Or maybe, like me, you’ll like about 95% of Knowing, only really really REALLY think the ending sucks eggs.  Not because it’s a theoretically bad way to end it, but because it just doesn’t make any sense why it would have ended that way given every factor put into the plot.

Ah well.

To borrow a line from GI Joe, Knowing is half the battle.