I want to talk about the ending of Alex Proyas' Knowing so if you haven't seen it already and are planning to, then look away now. If you have, well, maybe you had the same thought as I did. But first, I have to admit that for the first hour or so I was pretty gripped. The trailer had me intrigued and the central conceit of a piece of paper written 50 years ago and then put inside a time capsule, a piece of paper filled with numbers that seemingly predict every global catastrophe from the last half century, and with a few still to come, is strong and creepy. Throw in the spooky Herrmann-esque score, the strange, blond, whispering men, and two spectacular action set pieces (the airplane crash and the subway disaster) and you've got a solid, suspenseful, well-directed, apocalyptic movie. But then the plot throws a curveball, and shoehorns some mystic melodrama as well as aliens into the heady mix and you've lost me. Especially the inclusion of the aliens which, to my mind, negate everything that's gone before. I mean, what was the actual point of the numbers in the first place if "they" were here all along? What purpose did they ultimate serve in terms of the overall story? And why did the aliens wait until mere moments before the end of the world before asking the kids to join them on a distant planet in order to continue mankind? Or did I miss something?
Friday 10 April 2009
Knowing
I want to talk about the ending of Alex Proyas' Knowing so if you haven't seen it already and are planning to, then look away now. If you have, well, maybe you had the same thought as I did. But first, I have to admit that for the first hour or so I was pretty gripped. The trailer had me intrigued and the central conceit of a piece of paper written 50 years ago and then put inside a time capsule, a piece of paper filled with numbers that seemingly predict every global catastrophe from the last half century, and with a few still to come, is strong and creepy. Throw in the spooky Herrmann-esque score, the strange, blond, whispering men, and two spectacular action set pieces (the airplane crash and the subway disaster) and you've got a solid, suspenseful, well-directed, apocalyptic movie. But then the plot throws a curveball, and shoehorns some mystic melodrama as well as aliens into the heady mix and you've lost me. Especially the inclusion of the aliens which, to my mind, negate everything that's gone before. I mean, what was the actual point of the numbers in the first place if "they" were here all along? What purpose did they ultimate serve in terms of the overall story? And why did the aliens wait until mere moments before the end of the world before asking the kids to join them on a distant planet in order to continue mankind? Or did I miss something?
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3 comments:
Still haven't bothered to get to this. I haven't actually read this post, though, as I may well catch it later this week - it was shot right here, after all. Might chime back in then ;)
A reason to watch: Rose Byrne.
A. Greed.
I liked a lot about this, but once the aliens arrived I spent the remainder of the run-time scratching my head. And Cage was simply awful here; I can hardly recall seeing a worse performance from him. Plus all Byrne had to do was look sullen or scream hysterically.
Honestly can't figure out the point of the numbers - to bring them to the mothership at the end? But the aliens have been hanging out in their bedrooms, so....? To give them "the choice" would seem to be it, but that doesn't really cut the mustard. The aliens could have at least turned out to be evil, anal-probing jerks: "We'll predict the end of your world AND molest your children in space!" Did like the fact the apocalypse actually went down, however...
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