Signs of the Apocalypse part 7 (spoilers included)

You may notice a trend in movies dealing with themes of the end of the world. Times are bleak and now mainstream movies are lapping at the tree sap of apocalypse. Certainly Knowing, the Nicholas Cage starrer directed by Alex Proyas (Garage Days, Dark City) has its rapture mojo on full tilt.
In Watchman we witness all the world's major cities being attacked nuke style by Ozymandias/Veidt although he makes it look like the handiwork of Dr. Manhattan. In a few months we have the master of annihilation Roland Emmerich. That guy was predicting the end of the world 12,000 years ago (10,000 BC - do the math). In his latest movie coming out this summer 2012, we witness, ah, world destruction.
In Knowing Cage plays a MIT researcher/professor who discovers a numeric coded messages left in a time capsule that accurately predicts disasters. Knowing has a creepy narrative flow what with a young boy (Cage's son in the movie is played by Houstonian Chandler Cantebury) being shown a vision by tall slightly Nordic men in black that portends flaming animals racing out of a forest fire. The CGI effects are especially good during an airliner crash.The bodies burn bright. This is followed by a subway car crash that doesn't so much depict carnage as a loud sound design and the considerable speed of impact. Now the next event has got to outdo that right? And where there have been recorded eyewitnesses to airline and train disasters nobody has really witnessed the apocalypse, not even David Koresh.
If you're going to destroy the world and the rapture occurs you need to wipe out every living organism, which is what Proyas does. In Michael Tolkin's The Rapture what did they really show for the end of the world but a couple of jail cell bars rattling, the camera shaking and the horsemen of the apocalypse riding on motorcycles without helmets?
Turns out that Cage's work involves our Sun's coronal ejections and he now believes a solar flare will engulf the Earth leaving the world uninhabited even creatures who take solace in underground mines and caves. To Knowing's credit it damn well provides a third act finale that obliterates.
Knowing is not one of these Christian funded movies starring Kirk Cameron but with a few changes (no Cage and cheese whiz effects) it could be. Proyas definitely wields a secular hand in the narrative, only at the end weaving in a religious sub-thread.
Chock up another guilty pleasure to computer effects and Cage playing distraught with all the passion and ham he can muster.