And So It Begins...

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This week I reviewed the new sci-fi thriller Knowing starring everyone’s favourite Nicholas Cage. It releases on DVD and bluray on Tuesday (July 7, 2009). You can view the trailer here.

Before I really start into it, know that I did not expect it to be in any way amazing. National Treasure and it’s obviously necessary sequel did not particularly entrance me. I definitely don’t hate Nicholas Cage, don’t think that. Despite the way his “neutral” face reminds me of a surprised, yet sleepy Keanu Reeves, I do enjoy a few of his movies (Adaptation, Lord of War, Weatherman, the Rock). He just seems to have this idea that he’s an action hero, and I don’t understand it (Con Air, National Treasure, Next, Ghost Rider).

So understand, that when I attempt to completely destroy any desire you may have to watch Knowing in the following paragraphs, it is not an attack on Nicholas Cage.

So this whole thing is about John, an MIT professor (this is at least the fourth time Nicholas Cage has played a guy named John... this time it become an obvious reference to the Christian Book of Revelations) and his kid Caleb (another biblical reference I found after some very quick googling, though with less relevance) finding a prophetic transcript in a time capsule, then trying to save the world.

(Their last name, Koestler, is shared with real life polymath author and anti-communist Arthur Koestler who wrote a few books on the paranormal, including some junk about coincidence and synchronicity)

The movie begins with an extended scene about a young girl, the movie’s adolescent prophet and the author of the transcript John later encounters. She is a loner, hears voices, and is rather pale. Also, the costume designer dressed her up to look exactly like one of the twins from Kubrick’s The Shining. While the creepy little girl thing COULD have worked, we are not watching a psychological horror film, we are watching a sci-fi action movie. Thus the first of many overused clichés poke’s us in the eye.

Next we meet a little boy for which it is impossible to empathize. He uses complicated words a child his age shouldn’t be able to pronounce, much less understand, and is otherwise obnoxious (more so than the regular nine year old anyways - supersmart child cliche!). Plus in this scene the subject of John’s religion is brought up. We are continually bashed over the head with it for the next 110 minutes to little effect. John also closely resembles another action movie scientist we’ve met recently (Dr. Robert Langdon of the Da Vinci Code... in case you were stumped - cliche).

Then blah, blah, blah, a series of events that the movie ties together by saying “Oh wow, look at this CRAZY coincidence(cliche)!” happen, and we are treated to my favourite scene of the movie, actually featuring the best explosion I’ve witnessed on the small screen for quite some time (followed, unfortunately, some the worst fake fire since the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and Nicholas Cage pretending to know what it’s like to stick his hands into a blazing flame.)

Also there are aliens. Or angels. One of the two, the movie is intentionally ambiguous and mysterious. Queue X-files theme. I chalk the whole thing up to scientology. In fact, immediately after watching I ran to Google to see if either the writers or Nicholas Cage himself were known quacks (and I was disappointed, Cage’s name does not appear on Wikipedia’s notable Scientologist list).

This alien/angel thing I actually find to be what makes this movie fall of the fence and into the mud. Thinking about it, the writers actually had some good things going. Biblical references, foreshadowing, interesting hooks, you want to know what those upcoming disaster’s are (and they are brutally satisfying to the action movie lover in me), but a line is crossed when John’s mission becomes an impossible task, and the “angeliens” cart off his kid in a future-tech Noah’s Ark.

A saving grace of the film could have been the more subtle foreshadowing and misdirection it employs, such as the missile shaped time capsule, the name of the school (William Dawes was one of the riders who, like Paul Revere, warned the Americans the British were on the way), and a few things John’s scientist friend says. Unfortunately, cliché and religious blather is tossed around like gossip in a hair salon.

For these violations, I'm going to have to take Knowing into custody. A hundred charges of assault with a boring weapon, and one count of Overly-long-ending-sequence. (Seriously, it felt longer than the ending of Close Encounters).