Communicator (communicator) wrote,
Communicator
communicator

Knowing

I watched the film 'Knowing' which stars Nicholas Cage. I don't think I've ever said this before, and it surprises me to say it, but it's worth watching for the special effects. Saying no more than what is in the trailer: Nicholas Cage discovers an old piece of paper which predicts the time and place of a series of major disasters which have happened over the past 50 years, followed by one or two still to come. He therefore - and this is in the trailers - goes to check out the predicted disasters. These are rendered in a very realistic 'you were really there' way. Best disaster footage I think I've ever seen.

For the rest it is servicable, mediocre, competently but not inspiringly written and acted. The development outside of the rendition of disaster is like a thousand familiar Hollywood spooky/suspensful thrillers.

The script is very clever in one way - absolutely every line with any metaphysical content is written carefully so that it can be taken as either in line with mainstream Christianity or sceptical. It's as clever as advertising copy, in the way a clever person has worked to an obvious commercial imperative - offend neither the liberal nor the conservative camp.

At the end some benign aliens come and take away two children before the Earth is destroyed. I though this part was a little bit crap. Hogwash really. And like all the rest of the film it can be read in two ways.

In one reading the aliens are shown as being angels (at the very end they seem to have traditional angel wings, and there are references to Ezekiel). They take two white American protestant children, a boy and a girl, and put them into a garden with a big tree. This could be read as a very mainstream religious story.

On the other hand, we could take them as just aliens. We do see other alien ships leaving the dying Earth, and we could believe they were taking other children, of other races and ethnicities and religious backgrounds. Even non-Americans.

What sort of disgusts me is that the film never shows any black or brown kids being rescued by the aliens. We never see them in the new earth. Only the two white clean cut American kids. This just kind of makes me feel the film is covering its bases so as not to alienate the kind of audience who wouldn't like to see that. Am I being too sensitive? I don't know.
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