Say No-ing to Sci-fi thriller 'Knowing'

by Tex Norman⁽⁸⁰⁾

Let me start by saying that I am a huge fan of Nick Cage, I love his skills, and even when a movie just isn’t that good, he is still good in it. I just got home from watching Knowing and this is another example of a great performance by Cage, great special effects at least in the disaster scenes, making the worst good film I have seen in a long time. Cage is great, but under used in this film, because all he is asked to do in the script is freak out be depressed. He does it well, but come on, if you have hired Mozart would you ask him to play chopsticks?

One of my quirky little hobbies is that I take note of commercial actors and then delight in point out to my wife when new actors get a TV show or a nice part in the movies. I get the pleasure of nudging my wife and saying, “See that little kid? He was in that Insurance Commercial.” I did that for Chandler Canterbury the little boy lead in Knowing. I swear I saw him in a commercial just the other day where he cut his eyes, looks at his actor dad and asks if their family have life insurance. Chandler is a 9 year old Huston native who has already appeared in:

THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett,
POWDER BLUE with Forest Whitaker, Jessica Biel
THE REPOSSESSION MAMBO with Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

Young Chandler has a bright future in films if he wants it.

The other child actor, Lara Robinson, was blessed to play two characters (her grandmother as a child, and as the grandchild Amanda some 50 years later.) This little girl did a fabulous job, she is very pretty, and there is a great chance we will see her grow up in front of the camera.

Actually, I enjoyed most of the film, although it seemed oppressively sad through the first 2/3rds of the story. The movie couldn’t make up it’s mind if it wanted to be a disaster film, a horror movie, a suspense/thriller, or a religious End-Times (Left Behind) movie.

I think, in the end, the story painted itself in a corner and the only way out was to be an apocalyptic End Time movie with a touch of God starting over with a new crew of innocents. The real problem with this movie was not with direction, or acting, or special effects but with plot. The story’s plot is linked to events so overwhelming that its conclusion can't possibly resolve itself satisfactorily, and the end of the movie feels contrived.

There is actually a term for this sort of out of the heavens solution to being painted into a plot corner, and that term is deus ex machine . Literally, the term deus ex machine means “god from the machine. " If the plot problem is resolved with a surprising or unexpected event that resolves the flaws, and ties up all the loose ends that is considered sloppy plotting, bad writing, and the ending just does not satisfy.

Knowing captured my attention because of the code breaking aspect seen in the teasers, and because of the time capsule. When I was in high school, my teacher sent me to an event at the Smithsonian for an on creativity and as part of that event participants were asked to bring items that were placed in a time capsule. It is a practice that I don’t hear much about now, but it continues to be a neat idea that I wish were going on more frequently. In this story a time capsule is placed into the ground, in front of an elementary school as part of the opening ceremonies. Fifty years later, the time capsule is opened and a coded message is found that predicts all the major disasters that took place over the past 50 years, with the exception of three events that had not happened yet.

If you are a fan of Cage, or End Times stories, or just like special effects then go see it. Go to an early show to save money, but go. If you only sort of like this stuff then wait for it to show up on DVD .

Article submitted Sunday, March 22, 2009 & read 621 times.

Tex Norman is a social worker, currently working at the Oklahoma DHS Abuse and Neglect hotline. He interviews people reporting abuse and/or neglect of children and vulnerable adults and writes a narrative. The narratives (and demographics) are used to initiate investigations of the allegations. He says it is like writing 8 to 10 stories a day. In August 2012, he will have been married to Kathie for 40 years. He has a son Ryan who earned a PhD from Princeton and he is now a scientist doing research in molecular biology. Tex spends his free time working as an artist and writer. He has one art site, and a blog that might be of interest: http://tex-norman.artistwebsites.com/ and http://collagepoetrybytex.blogspot.com/

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