THE CRITIC-AL LIST
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Crazies
Case 39
The Wolfman
Legion
The Lovely Bones
Black Death
Daybreakers
Avatar
The Stepfather
Ninja Assassin
The Descent: Part 2
Amer
The Twilight Saga: New Moon
The Box
2012
Disney's A Christmas Carol
The Horseman
Solomon Kane
Pandorum
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs
District 9
An Education
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra
Orphan
A Perfect Getaway
The Imaginarium Of
Doctor Parnassus
Up
Harry Potter
And The Half-Blood Prince
The Taking of Pelham 123
Transformers
The Revenge Of The Fallen
Antichrist
Terminator Salvation
Last House On The Left
Inglorious Basterds
Angels & Demons
Adventureland
Star Trek
Crank: High Voltage
Coraline
Dragonball Evolution
Let The Right One In
Drag Me To Hell
Race to Witch Mountain
Knowing
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Not Quite Hollywood
Lesbian Vampire Killers
Martyrs
The Children
Surveillance
Watchmen
The Unborn
The International
Friday The 13th
Franklyn
Push
Punisher:War Zone
The Uninvited
Amusement
The Good The Bad And
The Weird
Hush
Underworld
The RIse OF The Lycans
My Bloody Valentine
Bolt
Slumdog Millionaire

Directed by Alex Proyas. Starring Nicolas Cage, Rose Byrne and Chandler Canterbury. Action drama, USA, 100 min. Web Site.

Nicolas Cage is hardly the marquee sign of quality these days. Why do the money-men think he’s a credible leading man after headlining such dross as GHOST RIDER, BANGKOK DANGEROUS,  THE WICKER MAN remake and NEXT?

However, despite a great deal of his signature eye-rolling, drunken angst antics and moody self-reflection, Cage is quite watchable in Alex Proyas’ apocalyptic disaster movie from Summit, the TWILIGHT people. In fact, KNOWING is almost NEXT taken to the next level of bizarre sci-fi bravado. It’s actually a heady mix of alien allegory, religious rapture and metaphysical melodrama in a modern twist on 50s’ vintage paranoid sci-fi movies. When his son Caleb (BENJAMIN BUTTON’s Chandler Canterbury) gets given a document from a time capsule buried 50 years ago at his elementary school, widowed scientist John Koestler (Cage) discovers the numbers densely listed on it predicted every major global disaster since. With more death-dealing occurrences prophesied to happen, including the end of the world…tomorrow! But will anyone listen to his dire warnings? Diana Wayland (DAMAGES’ Rose Byrne) just might pay attention because she’s the daughter of the deceased schoolgirl who authored the numerological forecast five decades earlier. So Diana and her daughter Abby (Lucinda Embry) join forces with John and Caleb to get to the bottom of the mystery, uncover who the blond Whispering People are leaving smooth black stones everywhere, and ultimately the Meaning of It All.  Would you Adam and Eve it? Po-faced and absurdly portentous it may be. Yet the propulsive narrative, scripted by MERCURY RISING’s Ryne Douglas Pearson, mind-bends politically anxious ideas from THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL and WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE into the New Age spirituality of THE FOUNTAIN for a gleefully eccentric punishment of catastrophe thriller with biblical dimensions. Proyas’ skill at maintaining Alfred Hitchcock levels of suspense (greatly helped by Marco Beltrami’s Bernard Herrmann-esque score) while keeping escalating ridicule at bay is undeniable. Not many directors could get away with such a risky balancing act. Although grungy looking in places, when the money sequences arrive - the plane and subway train crashes plus the CE3K finale – they showcase transfixing special effects with real dynamic action flair.

You know throughout KNOWING that it’s nothing more than preposterous pulp fiction. But it really does slip down a stirring treat.

Alan Jones

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