ine of the best science-fiction films lately

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2009)

I am part of a proud minority who likes Alex Proyas' films. While almost everybody hated 'I, Robot' not having found in it, the image of Asimov's work that they expected I liked the way Proyas dealt with this theme. It looks that this time also few critics enjoyed this film and its ambitions - I actually liked most of its vision and coherence.
'Knowing' starts as some kind of Dan Brown mystery, with a time capsule letter put on earth 50 years ago by a young college student in Massachusetts being found by a nowadays astro-physicist to contain exact dates and number of victims of almost any catastrophic event that happened between 1959 until today. The today hero is played by Nicholas Cage, a widowed single father whose son plays a role in the story, as he seems to start hearing the same voices and has the same vision as the girl who wrote the prophecy 50 years ago. Philosophical discussions about determinism and fate develop in parallel with the anxiety of the characters, the atmosphere slides into Gothic including a Psycho-like mansion that starts to be haunted by strange visitors. The combination between horror and contemporary action films works very well, because it has logic and consistency. It is not only that the special effects are very well made, but they also are in the right place in the story, and the right dose, being not a goal but a means to pass a message.
Sure, this message is ambitious, and for some people it may look disturbing or may seem to question or explain too much fundamental religious beliefs. The final part of the film turns into something again different, big catastrophe film combined with extra-terrestrial visitors a la X-file story. I would have been normally shocked by such an exotic mix, but I actually enjoyed it and made to believe it - in cinema logic terms of course. In many cases the problem with films extra-terrestrial is that they are better when you expect the outer-space visitors than when you see them. Without completely avoiding the slight disappointment one feels seeing on screen outer-space visitors and their space ships, in this case the effects are well made and the graphics beautiful. It is worth seeing the film in cinema theaters by the way, for the dimension of the effects. The camera work and the pallet of colors are also remarkable, and so is the music which combines classical scores by Beethoven for example with the original music of Marco Beltrami. It is only in the final scenes that the cinema solution lacks originality reminding too much 'Contact', but it does fit in the intentions of the authors, and overall the film provides a good cinematographic experience.