Mood:
not sureNow Playing: "I'm Mad" by the Presidents of the USA
The following post is posted by the Boring Rocks' one and only film critic extraordinaire, Pumpki. As usual in Pumpki's reviews, some spoilers are possible. If you don't want to have a year-old NickCage movie spoiled for you, you are probably psychotic though.
Film: Knowing
Grade: .5/4
Y'know what I hate about SG's Tripod website? There is no way to set my emotion as ANGRY. Are people never angry in Tripod's magical green circle? I mean, I tried to tune you guys in by stealing Ghosti's iPod and cranking PUSA's "I'm Mad," but c'mon, I'm furious.
Why am I furious? This time, it's because of Nicholas Cage. Intriguingly, last time it was also about Nicholas Cage, and the time before that as well. Nicholas Cage has not been in a good movie in ages, and this time, he's hit a new low.
I have a rule about movies. Well, if you know me, you'll know I have dozens of rules about movies. But Rule Numero Uno is as follows--If your movie would have the same ending whether or not your main character was ever born or anyone, for that matter, ever did anything your main character did, your movie sucks. Simple. Nicholas Cage is on a quest to figure out a pattern of numbers--a pattern of numbers that has predicted every major natural disaster for 50 years. Nick Cage manages to figure this out. He manages to go to the site of all upcoming natural disaster, but fails to make a difference. Then the world is getting exploded, and Nicholas Cage can't possibly do anything, so everyone in the world dies. The end. Knowing the date of the apocalypse is stupid if you are not Superman or Thor. If you are Nick Cage, this is useless.
Useless is a good buzzword to describe the entire plot of this film, now that I think of it. The list of numbers is given to a FREAKY HORROR MOVIE GIRL by the FOUR SPACEMEN OF THE APOCALYPSE. Why do they give her the list of the disasters? There is no good reason. The list is useless. There is nothing she can do. Even when the list is shared with THE CHOSEN ONE (oh boy, a chosen one, am I right?), there is nothing he can do. Yes, he's supposed to leave the world on the apocalypse, but whether or not he's ready isn't really important now is it, considering the SPACEMEN have a LARGE SPACESHIP OF THE APOCALYPSE. Plus, they continue to telegraph this list even after everyone knows about it.
Throughout the movie, these aforementioned SPACEMEN leave SMOOTH ROCKS, or as Ghosti calls them, APOCALYPSE PEBBLES (which, incidentally, is the A-Side of our local band's new EP). These rocks serve no purpose. They are useless. They do not protect you from the apocalypse. They do not survive the apocalypse. No one even chucks them at passerby.
At the end of the day, the world is fried, and our only hope is two HORROR MOVIE KIDS and a pair of rabbits. Yup.
If you are still intrigued by this, you may want to check to make sure you know what the word "intrigue" means. Add bad acting, generic horror tropes, and some of the crappiest CGI since computers started GI'ing, and you've got a Nick Cage movie.
In case you're wondering, the half-a-star was given because the world fries in a pretty cool manner. Chalk it up to the REN scale, eh?
