Knowing

So this morning, Kimberly Sizer and I went to see the movie 'Knowing'.

**Spoiler alert: if you're crazy enough to see a Nicolas Cage movie you might want to skip this entry**

As for the rest of us, when you go to the matinee at 34th st., the tickets are $6. Yeah, I know! So I didn't mind which movie it was as long as it was a movie and I could have some popcorn. Me and Kim knew that we'd laugh at Nicholas Cage but we didn't know we'd laugh at the movie itself. Please allow me to start at the beginning....Long ago when I was in undergrad and still able to take electives, I took a Cinematic Expression class. This class taught me many things which in turn validates my movie snobery. It had also ruined most movies because I can sense the 'big reveal' almost immediately from camera angles and other context clues throughout poorly done movies and movies in general.

Ok that being said- The premise of the movie: this crazy girl hears whispers and writes down these numbers that the whispers tell her. A page of these numbers ends up in a school time capsule and is dug up fifty years later in 2009. Cage's son in the movie ends up with the number paper and all Hell breaks loose. He figures out the numbers outline catastrophes and the longitude and latitude of where it occurred on earth. Good idea - poor delivery.

Cage can't act. We know this. But the script didn't help. It was a hideous script. The most interesting character was his son and he did as much as he could with the small amount he had. But seriously, it was pretty bad. I almost want to write an angry letter. One of my favorite lines was "I can still see their faces...burning" delivered by Cage himself. It was...well, it was..Shakespearean.

All this other dumb stuff happens, the son hears the whispers, they track down the crazy number girl's family, these weird Vampire looking guys are stalking the son. Then (Spoiler!!!) we find out the final event listed on the paper is the end of the world. Oh snap. Ok so, luckily the only thing I noticed was the bird's eye view camera angle during the opening credits. That normally means that aliens will be making an appearance at some point. BUT the big reveal was how exactly the world would end. Apparently the sun was gonna shoot a fire beam and destroy the ozone layer leaving the earth unable to support life. Brilliant. Except for the fact that from the beginning of the damn movie, they were throwing the Sun in your face:

The crazy girl staring at the sun instead of playing during recess,
The crazy girl releasing a yellow balloon into the sky at the time capsule ceremony,
Nicholas Cage giving a lecture on the properties of the sun at MIT while tossing a model of the sun around the class at various students,
The radio announcer discussing the extension of Indian summer,
There are others that I don't feel like listing. But you see what I mean though?

On the plus side, the special effects were fantastic! I was horrified to see NYC explode and to see a train crash at the fictional Lafayette st. station. Ever notice how disaster movies like to destroy NYC any way they can? Hmm.

The point is, don't see this movie. Unless you want a good laugh because I've just ruined it for you.