I would not make a good studio executive primarily for two reasons. First, I’d buy the rights to the work of a lot of people on this list; even if the project never got made, you’d probably be able to pay off your student loans. (Now I know you’re all saying, “Yeah, sure, he’d buy my stuff, but I wonder whose stuff he wouldn’t?” I’m gonna let you obsess on that one for a while...)The second reason I would not be a good studio exec is I’d pass on a lot of projects that would end up making a lot of money for someone else. I’d pass on any remake. I wouldn’t so a movie based on a video game. I wouldn’t do a sequel whose number was higher than 2/II. I’d order a drug test on whoever brought me the idea for that Three Stooges movie with Benicio del Toro, Jim Carey, and Sean Penn as Moe, Curly, and Larry. And I’d have passed on Knowing, because as intriguing as the script is... it’s like a ‘70s sitcom. Let’s pick on Three’s Company.Chrissie overhears Jack and Larry discussing Jack’s test results. Jack says he only has until the end of the week and Chrissie decides Jack’s gonna die. She tells everyone and they spend the next 17 minutes (minus commercials, a 30-minute show only runs 22 minutes) trying to make Jack’s last days comfortable. Finally, as the 20-minute mark, Jack asks what’s going on and they tell him and he says, Silly, the test results are for my cooking final; the power went off in the kitchen and everyone’s dish got spoiled; he only has until the end of the week to cook another one.See, if Chrissie had just asked one question, you could have spent thirty minutes doing something more productive.
And that’s what Knowing is like, in the end: take some X-Files, throw in some Left Behind (without the proselytizing) and add a dash of Chariots of the Gods? It’s well acted, actually a pretty smart script, everything is pretty neatly tied up and all the clues to the finale are laid out from the beginning. as a journey where the central character makes a discovery and all that it works, but ultimately, the discovery is pretty trivial, almost incidental, and the audience is left asking Why?, or more accurately, WTF? The plot points, as they are revealed, are more Ah... as opposed to Ah-ha!, the answers less “Because” and more “Because I said so.”Knowing isn’t a bad movie, but in the end, it’s not a good one, either.
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