4.18.2009

Knowing.


I went to see this Nicholas Cage driven Sci-Fi at the theatre last week. The poster looked cool and I read it was some sort of end of the world thing and Alex Proyas the director was responsible for The Crow back in the day.

The film reads like a compilation of those perversely fascinating accidents and disasters clips you can find on youtube. Some of the scenes are quite spectacular and worth the ticket price alone but the truth is that all of this amounts to nothing when in the end after repeated nighttime sightings of albino model types in trench coats Cage follows a trail of strange pebbles and uncovers a plan for aliens to rescue children from the impending apocalyptic solar flare doom. Just imagine that movie pitch! The aliens are taking them away to colonise new planets. All of this is presented with patronizing religious undertones regarding angels and Adam and Eve etc. It basically builds up, entertains and then deflates entirely much in the same way as the Kubrick/Spielberg brain fart 'A.I'. did. A sinful waste of something that could have been a future classic if not for the awfully misjudged ending. Fail!

4 comments:

Dropkick said...

i think what's worth mentioning is that the children the aliens take away are to colonize new worlds are all white. slight oversight or obvious racist statement?

Roger Ebert has gone mad http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090318/REVIEWS/903189991

La Sporgenza said...

That's odd... the plot of Knowing seems to be a nearly inverted version of a fantasy film script that I've been mulling around for a while now. In that version, aliens come and take all the white children away too..... and then the credits roll.

My pitch goes something like this.....

“It's Children of Men meets Communion with a sprinkle of a reverse Logan's Run thrown in to tie it all together. I'm picturing it as a cinema-verite-black-feel-good-comedy.”

It's either an eight minute short or the whole treatment needs some flushing out yet, I'm not sure which.

Open to suggestions.

Britarded said...

I remember whilst I was sitting watching Knowing, I secretly hoped that the aliens had orchestrated a planet-wide solar flare hoax and once the hysteria on earth had died down everyone slowly realised the children had all been abducted by an intergalactic glassy alien paedo ring. This realisation sees every adult human weeping as they plunge into such a manic depression that we become like Pandas and can't bring ourselves to reproduce anymore. The human race becomes extinct within 50 years. I think there is a trilogy in this, maybe somesort of creche breakout and a vengeful rebellion sees the humans bounce back? I dunno, feel free to pick up the pieces Scott. Blended together we could make one hell of a script.

La Sporgenza said...

"I remember whilst I was sitting watching Knowing, I secretly hoped..."

Tom, I'm sorry but this sounds like the start of a particularly awful romance novel. Maybe all those date movies you've been watching have turned your brain to mush.

Hear me, See me...E...eee.. Touch me....

Feel me...

Sporgey