Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Upon Viewing Nicolas Cage's New Movie

After decrying the paucity of recent quality Nicolas Cage vehicles last month, I ambled somewhat hesitantly into a showing of his new one "Knowing" on Sunday afternoon. My one-and-only said she thought I would like it and I'd pretty much seen everything else I'd been interested in, so decided to take the plunge with a friend. There's a bit of a commotion on the net over Ebert giving it 4 stars while most others have eviscerated it.

I went in hoping to get something out of it though not expecting much. It started out very interestingly with the burial of a time capsule in 1959. 50 years later, it is opened and Nic Cage's son is given a piece of paper that only has numbers on it. He shows it to his father who, as a scientist, sees a pattern, a pattern which strongly suggests precognition (in the movie, Cage is an atheist).



The movie did quite well in generating tension over the first 75 minutes. After that, there is a great deal of overacting (most notably by a female companion of Cage's). After a solid beginning, the film was starting to fall apart. Then it did something that I wasn't even remotely expecting (especially not from a mainstream film).

SPOILER ALERT: Severe Tire Damage

Are you sure you want to KNOW? In the latter half of the movie, it toyed a bit with the idea of the world ending, but since the film starred Cage, there was no way that was gonna happen, right? He would end up saving the day. That turned out not to be the case. As the poster somewhat alludes to, the Earth does, indeed, meet its demise.



Cage and everyone else on the planet perishes. Now that is ballsy and for that (and a couple other things that I don't want to reveal), I recommend the film. Though I wouldn't give it 4 stars (as Ebert did), it left quite an impression on me.

8 comments:

Rocketstar said...

I'll give it a go

Unknown said...

You and I agree on Nic Cage. I find him to be a very flat character. The scripts seem to speak for themselves when he takes on a role, similar to how I feel about Keanu Reeves. For this film, I'll wait on the DVD release.

Timothy Smith said...

Now that sounds like my kind of film!

I love movies that don't HAVE to end on a happy note, like Pet Cemetery.

Timothy Smith said...

Tom, taking the wife to see that movie in a few hours, our first movie if you can believe that!

We have only been together 7 years though, lol.

Sarah said...

i can't stand cage.

Thomas said...

Rocket, sounds good.

PJ, Reeves is, without question, another disappointing thespian.

Tim, I'm glad to hear that you're giving it a try, especially on the big screen. Nice to hear that my post played a part in you and your beloved going to the movies togther for the very first time.

Sarah, for many of his movies, I'm the same way.

Timothy Smith said...

It did play a part, I was waiting for something that sounded half way interesting.

We have a new theater about 3 minutes from our house, a big fancy one.

I was surprised at the prices, I thought they would be more. The tickets were 7 bucks a piece and even the food was tame but of course I am use to the ballpark.

They had sodas that for 1 dollar you can fill for the rest of the year by saving the glass!

The movie was pretty good but I wish the overall plot would have been a physic that came up with the number sheet and left at that.

I did miss a few work calls but it was so nice being away from work for a few hours.

My prego wife destroyed a large popcorn, some cheese sticks and a large soda.

She wants to see "I love you, man" next.

Thomas said...

Tim, I can understand your semi-disappointment at the movie going a bit farther than what you were expecting. Sounds like you went to a really cool theatre. "I Love You, Man" was good, but not as funny as I'd been hoping.