I took at look at this filmon the recommendation of Robert Ebert’s "best films of 2009".Maybe to him, bit overall it was pretty stupid and ponderous sometimes bordering on incoherent. The only thing that moves the movie along a little bit are the terrific special effects.
Given the obvious resources they had for this film there are a lot of directions they could have gone with the plot line, especially in the notion of randomness vs directedness and the nature of time, but they chose the laziest and stupidest route every time. There were hard questions that could have been asked and answered with this movie, especially if they made some sense of the savior aliens/angels random, time wasting, annoying behavior. Most of their “loiter and withdraw” actions were not logically or causally linked to any imperative in the film. Even the compulsive event prediction rationale a large chunk the movie is based on was kind of pointless in the end.
I will take your recommendation and continue to not see it. Also because it looked bad and most especially because usually I can count on Nick to suck. (None-the-less, I think I will see and enjoy the Sorcerer’s Apprentice.)
But was it better than Next, a movie about (apparently) ‘a Las Vegas magician who can see into the future who’s pursued by FBI agents seeking to use his abilities to prevent a nuclear terrorist attack’? Or Ghost Rider? Or The Family Man?
It’s been a while since I saw it, but I didn’t think it was horrible, maybe a bit preachy … no, not preachy, but definitely from a Christian point of view.
I just watched “Next” on tv a little while ago. It was…not good. I don’t know if this makes me ageist, but I’m starting to get squicked out by casting old* guys like Nic Cage with young hotties like Jessica Biel. That usually causes me to drop a movie by half a star right out of the gate.
So, don’t bother with “Knowing,” either? I think we taped “Ghost Rider” this weekend - I’ll have to take a peek at that (with low expectations, in spite of Craig Ferguson saying it’s the best movie ever).
Knowing had me fooled til I saw it, what with the bait and switch trailers… I was kind of hoping for something like Pi or Mercury Rising… disappointing, very disappointing movie, when the plot started to become apparent.
For my money, I actually liked The Forgotten better than Knowing as far as story and cinematography. Which isn’t really saying that much, as it was a weak film as well, but It’s a better handling of the same theme.
I would have liked the movie a lot better if they left off the “angel/alien” stuff. I think it would have been a great ending if they just killed everyone instead of having the kids be the next Adam and Eve. I would have loved if they would have focused more on the unraveling of society and what everyone does when they know the world is going to end.
I think Ebert was on crack. The movie had an interesting set up, good pacing/atmosphere, and some visually amazing sequences. But Nick really phoned it in and the plot resolution didn’t make sense.
