Minority Movie Report - Mike

Can a good premise and cool effects be enough for a movie goer to enjoy despite bad acting? Should a studio give an audience what they want and expect?

After seeing Knowing, I wasn't sure if I liked it or not. The trailer was great. Right to the point with no spoilers. Normally I would be going into it with high expectations. Problem is that Nicolas Cage has not been that good in the last few movies he starred in. I always give him a chance for work like Leaving Las Vegas, Matchstick Man, Adaptation, Moonstruck and Weather Man, I have a week spot for National Treasure... ok, no comment.

None of the actors delivered a great performance. Rose Byrne who is a good actress, is given very little to work with including some completely incoherent lines that go against the way her character should be evolving. I guess she did what she could with it. But it does take you out of the movie.

The use of music was pretty interesting. The movie was shot in a very interesting way. One of my favorite scenes is one that you can see in the trailer. In one long continuous hand held shot, there is a plane crash scene that is fantastic. To be fair, all the disasters scenes are great.

What I also found interesting is the ideas and subjects that it explores. A question is raised. What would happen if we found out that religion and science both had part of the answers to questions like: Where do we come from and where we are going?

Nicolas Cages character is interesting. He starts as an MIT teacher, a man of science, who's philosophy is ''shit happens''. His son gets a letter from a time capsule that has been dug up at his elementary school; in it are some chilling predictions in the form of numbers that have to be decoded. Some of these predictions have already occurred and others are about to. Since he was able to read the code, Nicolas Cage then thinks that his family plays a role in the events that are about to unfold. The ending is out of the ordinary. I will not go into details but it's not a conventional studio ending.

I think that if you can get passed the bad acting, Knowing is going to raise some very interesting questions. Visually interesting... As always, Alex Proyas did a great job. I say see it and let me know if you disagree!

Mike Chery
http://www.minoritymoviereport.com/