Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Knowing

This is topic Knowing in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Mark Lensenmayer (Member # 134) on 03-20-2009, 03:16 PM:

If I was KNOWING how bad this movie was, I might not have gone.
OR
Mr. Spielberg, they stole your ending.
OR
0320200940118300BM (Bad Movie)
OR
Hey, my kid does special effects...maybe we can save some money.
OR
I know how we can make this different from INDEPENDENCE DAY...we'll blow things up from the BOTTOM instead of down from the TOP! No one will know!

The "creatures" in the film reminded me of the characters in the classic Twilight Zone episode "To Serve Man".

This is OK if you have nothing better to do, but it should have been a lot better.

First time I've ever seen a credit for an actor's personal chef.

Posted by Chris Hipp (Member # 1788) on 03-20-2009, 05:56 PM:

I liked the story...the SFX were terrible...the cheese factor is pretty high and the ending is very Close Encountersesque. All in all though, I enjoyed it.

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 03-21-2009, 12:14 AM:

Nicholas Cage better get involved with a winning movie pretty damned quick. Too many more losers like this and he will be falling head long into the dead zone of straight to video movie bull crap.

The Wicker Man was intolerable. [bobby]

and

didn't watch for anymore than 20 minutes. Suckage! Bangkok Dangerous just looked plain stupid based on the movie trailers, never mind the tell tale early September '08 release platform. Nick. Dude. You need to get back into being involved with more serious acting roles. Your action hero days are behind you. Leave that crap to guys like Martin Henderson.

Maybe Nick and Cuba Gooding, Jr. can share some stories between Oscar winners about what went wrong. There's always infomercials pitching various ab-exercise devices. Wesley Snipes can't be wrong!

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 03-22-2009, 01:47 AM:

CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 14
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema DLP/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Two stars (out of four)

WARNING: "I know how this sounds, but I've mapped these numbers to the dates of every major Spoiler from the last 50 years."

So while waiting in line to buy tickets, I completely randomly bite my tongue for no reason. As an instant reflex to this, I shouted "FUCK!" right there in the middle of the lobby. Suffice to say, this turned some heads.

THE PLOT: A child puts some numbers in a time capsule. Wackiness ensues.

The plane crash was awesome. It completely kicked ass. The plot layout at the beginning was good too. It should have led to a better movie than it did.

Having said that, I didn't HATE it. It does remind you of the most recent "War of the Worlds", but it's more interesting than that piece of crap. Still, I'm comparing mediocre to crap.

Mark's comment ("This is OK if you have nothing better to do, but it should have been a lot better") pretty much sums up my opinion too.

I do hope the kids got a sex ed class in before they were dropped off... [sex]

Posted by Dennis M Dow Jr (Member # 1970) on 03-23-2009, 11:35 AM:

Saw this movie Saturday night. What a wretched piece of trash. All I can say is it was 2hrs of my life I will never get back!

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 03-23-2009, 05:02 PM:

Who's distributing it in the USA? Over here it's going through ICON. Either they have money in it (do they?) or the main distributor knew what they had and passed it onto a little guy.

Posted by John Hawkinson (Member # 1135) on 03-24-2009, 03:02 AM:

Summit Entertainment.

--jhawk

Posted by Dennis Benjamin (Member # 1137) on 03-26-2009, 03:26 PM:

Saw this today at the Regal Rockville Center 13.

I liked this movie, it was good.

I won't publicly comment on the quality of the picture.

[Razz]

Posted by Tyler Potts (Member # 4952) on 03-27-2009, 06:50 PM:

From the teaser, I thought it was The Number 23 with Cage... then I walked in today about 3 minutes early to clean it and find something that reminded me of Gary Sinise in Mission to Mars.

In 2 hours it went from a psychological thriller to a sci-fi flick? Who's going to air this on TV in 3 years, FX or SciFi?

But I still need to sit down for the whole thing, as a fulltime film handler should I even waste my time?

Posted by Justin Gorka (Member # 3727) on 03-28-2009, 03:05 PM:

Yup...crap!

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 03-28-2009, 09:03 PM:

Holy crap! I shall have to disagree vehemently with you guys.....

Knowing is an odd film and a dangerous one for Aussie director, Alex Proyas. Rooting his film in reality and then sliding increasingly towards the supernatural, the trick here is to maintain story plausibility and, more importantly, a credible conclusion. Proyas has previously proven to be adept at pure fantasy (The Crow, Dark City) and stark reality (Garage Days) but can he succeed in mixing the two? The answer is an emphatic "yes" for although the conclusion of Knowing sounds a little ridiculous if you say it out loud, Proyas notches his film from the real to the unreal in increments small enough to prevent us from throwing up our hands and crying, "this is bullshit!". Of course, this is also the magic of story telling and it is to Proyas' credit that we buy it wholesale.

The film represents an outstanding technical accomplishment which, arguably, is merely par for the course for Proyas - the premature death of of his star never stopped him from finishing The Crow and his mastery of technical wizardry was on full display in both Dark City and I, Robot. In Knowing, the brilliantly staged, wince-inducing disaster sequences tragically and effectively drive home the full impact of the senseless destruction of human life during a catastrophic event. The film may be a slow burner but when something happens, boy does it happen!

Knowing has much in common with the recent remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still except there's no Keanu to save the day here, Proyas takes us down a much braver and nihilistic path. The film also has similarities to Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain with its themes of loss and the afterlife though because the story is initially deceptive in it's intent, this is not immediately apparent. And although Proyas shoots for similarly lofty goals, it's implementation is simply not as elegant as Aronofsky's film. Of course, Nic Cage is no Hugh Jackman either, even if the film does play to the strengths of Cage's limited acting range.

However, being somewhat less than Aronofsky's magnum opus is barely a fault and taken on it's own terms, Knowing is a consummate cinematic achievement.

8 out of 10.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 03-28-2009, 10:14 PM:

Well, it was ok the first time I watched it. Then we had a employee screening and I was in charge. The screening quickly broke down in to Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

3/5 [thumbsup]

Also Stu, where do you get your reviews? They read like something off of a newspaper site. Just asking

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 03-28-2009, 11:33 PM:

I write them myself, mate.

Posted by Kurt Zupin (Member # 2751) on 03-29-2009, 04:21 AM:

Do you write for a paper or another site? Just asking because they are always really well written with a bunch of info everyone on this site already knows is all. Not knocking them at all, just curious is all.

Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 03-29-2009, 04:43 AM:

They're primarily written for www.modmove.com - an Aussie arts website. I just repost them from there. (I guess I'm just lazy. [Wink]

)

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 03-30-2009, 04:04 AM:

Nicholas Cage should never run in a movie. When he runs, he looks like a dick.

I'm just sayin'...

Posted by Joe Tommassello (Member # 4632) on 04-01-2009, 03:55 PM:

John - do you mean literally or figuratively?

I guess Con Air is looking a lot better by comparison. Bangkok Dangerous (which sounds like porn thriller to me) was pretty unexciting. Now that my expectations have been suitably lessened for "Knowing" I might put it at the bottom of my Netflix queue...right under "Gilbert Gottfreid:Dirty Jokes" and "Faces of Death 30th Anniversary Edition".

Posted by Mark J. Marshall (Member # 1409) on 04-03-2009, 11:29 PM:

I enjoyed it.

Joe, you'll probably hate it.