Mr. CollateralMay 21st, 2009 - 19:25:03

Well you are wrong about Knowing.

Nic Cage has finally spun out a good movie over the last 3 years. He has reaffirmed why he is one of my favorite actors with Knowing. After a slew of great films (World Trade Center, The Weather Man, Lord of War, National Treasure, Matchstick Men, Adaptation.), he took a horrible career path with Bangkok Dangerous, The Wicker Man, the subpar National Treasure 2, and the downright despicable Ghost Rider (thank you Mark Steven Johnson for that lovely piece of cinema garbage). I enjoyed Next but it did not fulfill my Nic Cage expectations. Now he has Knowing.

When I first saw the preview I thought the same thing, another garbage film starring Nic Cage with a bad haircut, and a stupid plot revolving around a secret code in a seemingly random pattern of numbers. The concept of numerology has previously been explored in The Number 23, which certainly left me with a bad taste in my mouth and strained eye muscles from rolling them at the plot twists. So, needless to say, I had such low expectations for Knowing that I refused to ever see it. The biggest shock came to me when I saw it was directed by Alex Proyas, who has made nothing but great thrillers (The Crow, Dark City, and I, Robot). The movie was released to mostly negative reviews, with the exception of Ebert, who gave it 4 stars. However, it garnered an above average rating on IMDb. A couple friends of mine saw it, and said I have to see it. So I went to the theater during the week and witnessed the film. I was utterly blown away. Proyas makes the movie work on so many levels. The cinematography was a spectacular feast for the eyes, the sound was intense, the editing was perfect, the music was eerie, and the movie was all around atmospheric. The disaster scenes were gritty, immaculate, poignant, and abusive to the senses. I have never scene disaster scenes like the ones featured in Knowing. I will not divulge into the story, as I do not like to spoil but I will say it is about more than just numbers.

See Knowing before making any further comments, because like I said, I thought that it was going to be trash, but it turned out to be one of my favorite movies of the year, thus far, probably top 5.

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