The latest sci-fi flick by director Alex Proyas is an impressive and surprisingly ambitious film. Proyas is the genius behind Dark City and The Crow, and yes he also did I, Robot,but it is easy to give him a pass for that mindless action spectacle since he didn’t have creative control. Where does Knowing stand compared to those movies? Its by no means on level of with Dark City and The Crow, but it does manage to excel beyond I, Robot.
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Knowing seemed to have a good story on paper, and then the ads arose, stinking of mediocrity. Fortunately the commercials proved to be wrong. The film, while not perfect, is an actual smart entertaining film. It has a pretty interesting set up, numbers that predict disasters. Thankfully, Knowing doesn’t pull a Number 23, which relied heavily on the theme of numbers to get to the next plot point. There are some gaps of logic in the story and it does come off as messy at times. Sometimes the story is introducing too many elements, for example a needless sub-plot that deals with rocks. The film elevates beyond its concept and does bring more to the table then you would think.
Proyas also brings the visual intensity needed for a high-caliber sci-fi flick. At times it reminded me of Dark City because of Proyas’s camera movements and many of the colorful framed shots. While some of the CGI was weak, the disaster scenes were hauntingly visceral and beautifully shot. The tracking shot during the plane sequence is a standout, that scene is so splendidly shot with realism that it makes one forgive the weak CGI. Proyas’s use of the HD red camera brings a surreal and beautiful look to the film. Some shots are so well composed that its as if your looking at a painting, most notably the opening shot.
The big question on most people minds is the obvious one, how was Nicolas Cage? Is it Wicker Man bad? Or Adaptation great? I can’t say Cage is bad, because he mildly gets the job done here. He’s passable, not especially good, but not bad. He gets by mostly contributed to the fact that his character has a compelling enough arc. The only scenes that bothersome were the ones where he is yelling or has a blank look on his face, which doesn’t occur thankfully too often. Rose Byrne, who is fantastic in Sunshine and Damages, is wasted here. She’s not terrible by any means, she’s fine, but she’s constrained by the script which doesn’t give her much to work with. Problems with their performances mostly arise in the more dramatic scenes. There is a scene where Cage and Byrne are having a yelling match on the phone. It becomes quite laughable. All around the acting is decent despite some laughable scenes.
Another problem with the film is the CGI. As the film goes on it becomes weaker and more noticeable. It didn’t bother me during the disaster scenes because they were so well shot, but it stands out in the small scenes. Again, it doesn’t come across bothersome during the disaster scenes, but its blatantly noticeable during the smaller scenes. All the scenes shot using green screens are strikingly distracting, especially when we see Cage driving in his car and in a particular scene with Cage standing in front of his house talking on phone.
The end of the film will likely divide audiences. Some may feel cheated, while others will be in awe at times, I was the latter. One may be confused at the ending, but it is worth checking out even for debate. I don’t know what most people will think of this, some will probably will make fun of it and pass it off as silly. Knowing is undoubtedly a tad messy, overacted at times, and contains rather weak CGI, but in the end it’s too hard of not to admire the film’s ambitiousness. Its beautifully shot, contains broad ideas, and is entertainingly surreal at times.