The World is On Fire Again, Someone Call Nicolas Cage
Posted by Neil Miller (neil@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 4, 2008
As the fine SciFi loving folks over at io9 pointed out this afternoon, it would appear that every apocalypse needs a scary globe poster. From War of the Worlds to Deep Impact to Independence Day, we always get a one-sheet where mother Earth is being ravaged by flames. And its all the same with the first one-sheet for Alex Proyas’ Knowing, which made its debut over on Ain’t It Cool News. Here’s the premise: the world is on fire and only Nicolas Cage can stop it. Alright, so maybe that isn’t exactly the story. In fact, it is much more clever than that. Knowing is the story of a professor (Cage) who finds that the contents of a time capsule at his son’s elementary school makes predictions of the future that have come true. The predictions lead the teacher to believe the world is ending, and that he and his son are involved in the apocalypse.
Have a look at the poster below and click to see an unreasonably large version over at AICN:
The premise of this movie sounds pretty rad, but potentially a little dull. We’ve seen something like this before, have we not — Jim Carrey in The Number 23. Sure that was more of a murder mystery and this is an apocalyptic thriller, but both films will inevitably have that mostly boring second act where the main character has to jump through hoops to decypher a coded message. You know what I call that? Popcorn break. Ultimately the advantage held by Knowing is that director Alex Proyas has the touch. He can drop sci-fi on us like few others, and it is his high level of ability that balances out the Nic Cage factor.
Knowing hits theaters on March 20, 2009.
Read more articles by Neil Miller
