#10 Knowing
Year: 2009
Director: Alex Proyas
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Epic Co-stars: None
Running Time: 121 mins.Cage Time: ~95%
Cage Kills: 0
Cage Flip-outs: 5
James' Review: As the movie opens Cage plays a genius professor and loving single father, but over the next two hours this character slowly transforms into the half cocked, moderately insane, and partially psychotic person that is in every great Cage character. The fun begins when Cage receivers a page full of rambling numbers that has recently been unearthed from a time capsule at his sons school. He applies his genius to this page and can suddenly predict every major natural disaster including the biggest/worst one ever that is coincidentally coming in rather short period of time.
In addition to a decently solid Nouveau Shamanic performance, Knowing contains several pretty awesome action / destruction sequences. One of which has an impressive series of helpless people suffering as they burn to death. In the end, the plot-line goes a bit flat as it tires (and fails) to tie up some loose ends, but this is all forgiven with the onset of one of the coolest end-of-days sequences I've seen in quite a long time.
In addition to the epic destruction, Nic Cage's hair borderlines on perfection during almost every second of the film. Sporting one of the deepest, most puffy hairlines in all of show business, his hair often resembles a beautiful and majestic bird with light weightless feathers. This hair, coupled with some of the most intensely concerned facial expression around, allows Nicolas Cage to easily be mistaken for a god on the big screen. But after several minutes of reflection one will come to the realization that this is not a case of mistaken identity, that your eyes haven't deceived you, that Nicolas Cage TRULY IS GOD.
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| Nouveau Shamonic + Total Destruction = Classic cage goodness. |
In addition to a decently solid Nouveau Shamanic performance, Knowing contains several pretty awesome action / destruction sequences. One of which has an impressive series of helpless people suffering as they burn to death. In the end, the plot-line goes a bit flat as it tires (and fails) to tie up some loose ends, but this is all forgiven with the onset of one of the coolest end-of-days sequences I've seen in quite a long time.
| Even Nic Cage himself is shocked by the beauty of his own hair in this film. |
In addition to the epic destruction, Nic Cage's hair borderlines on perfection during almost every second of the film. Sporting one of the deepest, most puffy hairlines in all of show business, his hair often resembles a beautiful and majestic bird with light weightless feathers. This hair, coupled with some of the most intensely concerned facial expression around, allows Nicolas Cage to easily be mistaken for a god on the big screen. But after several minutes of reflection one will come to the realization that this is not a case of mistaken identity, that your eyes haven't deceived you, that Nicolas Cage TRULY IS GOD.
Movie quotability: 2/5
Plot Holes:- "I think that shit just happens. But that's just me..."
- "You stay away from us you hear? You want some of this?" (hits tree with bat)
- "How am I supposed to stop the end of the world" (Diana gasps...
- Kid decides his hearing aid sucks and can suddenly hear without having his hearing aid in. (Nonsense disability)
- Supposedly "good mom" puts her daughter in the front seat of her car and races away like a maniac in her Mazda 3. Leaves children in car multiple times.
- "micro-teslas" are not a unit of solar radiation. And even if it was, it'd be totally insignificant to any other magnetic field in our daily lives.
- A pay phone still exists in a gas station parking lot, and the 9 year old carries plenty of change.
- Black rocks? WTF?
CAGEamatic
| 
Cinematic
| |
|---|---|---|
| Skyler |
Exceeds Expectations
|
Poor
|
| Shauna |  |  |
| James |
3.71/5
|
3.29/5
|
| Martine |
!Stayed in the Cage!
| |
At first I though we'd get to spend some time exploring philosophical ideas of causality, but the movie quickly breaks down into a suspense thriller with a series of actions scenes and mysteries. The problem is it tends to leave reality a bit behind as it does with the 100 uT burst of solar radiation which is nonsense as James pointed out. You don't need to resort to made up techno babble when the danger could have been expressed as normal EM radiation. I don't agree that said radiation could reach a mile deep in the crust, but its a moot point as you'd have nothing to eat or drink for the rest of eternity even if you did survive the initial event.
ReplyDeleteThe movie would have been more enjoyable for me if they had put a little more care into the previously mentioned points and the details of the movie. For instance, when Caleb sees the forest on fire the first animal to run out is a moose, which is not native to Massachusetts. When Cage gets to the gas station he doesn't care where the car with the kids went, he wants to know where Diane is. Cage pulls a guy from the burning plane then begins CPR without following the proper ABC sequence. When they visit Emily's single wide in the woods Cage leaves the headlights on and they gently shut the doors so as to not wake the children, I guess he must have disabled the warning chime to tell you that your lights are still on. Then in subsequent scenes the dash lights are off, once again leaving behind reality to help the truck cab be a dark and spooky place.
My final grip is that while you will see some General Motors products throughout the movie (review the traffic jam just before the plane crash to see Fords and Chevys), nothing is quite so tacky as the repeated camera pans across the Ford and F-150 logos of Cage's pickup. What about the tacky pan of the Mazda logo on Diane's car? Yup, partly owned by Ford. I get that you have to use someone's car for the lead character to drive and you may as well get paid for it, but you don't have to sell your soul and air time for tacky product promotions.
Wow, rough review. I figured despite some sloppy story work you would have at least liked the super explosions, great Cage acting, or perfect hair.
ReplyDeleteI did like the house, all of the old floorboards and woodwork with no neighbors in sight. Maybe I would have been a little nicer in my review if I wasn't sick and feeling like crap.
ReplyDeleteAs the first entry in my personal Year in the Cage journey (but certainly far from my first CAGEamatic experience), I must say I was thoroughly impressed with the absolute nonsense being portrayed on-screen for me. From the total lack of acting chemistry WHATSOEVER, to every single scene involving Saint Nick's silent Aryan stalkers, I was at the edge of my seat.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, the TOTALLY UNFORESEEN and DEFINITELY-NOT-IMPLIED-THROUGHOUT ending was a delightfully played-out icing on what might have otherwise been called "almost interesting."
#22 Knowing (2009) On Demand First Time View. Great movie!
ReplyDelete