What do you want to Know-ing?

You know what majority of film critcis are like? High school students. They all want to be respected and appreciated in their own right but none of them want to stand out from the masses. Instead, majority of them agree and disagree together, always wanting to fit in amongst the others. Of course this is a broad generalisation, it's like saying all black people love Obama or all women love Sex and the City when that is simply not true. Therefore I don't understand why majority of critics are quick to condemn Nicholas Cage films without judging them properly. In the weeks leading up to the release of his latest movie, Knowing, all I heard from online bloggers and critics was how this is going to be another schlocker, Cage is such a joke and wo' is me the reviewer for having to sit through a re-hash of Next. Therefore, you could imagine my suprise when ABC icon David Stratton called Knowing a "contemporary sci-fi classic" last Wednesday on At The Movies. Entertainment poster-boy Richard Wilkins went on to give an equally glowing review and so, along I trotted on Saturday evening to judge for myself.
And judge I did.
It’s rare that you can go to the movies today and be genuinely surprised by a film. Well, Knowing is one of those rare films that fools you in to thinking you are heading in one direction when in reality you are spiralling off in the opposite path. It’s beautifully executed by visionary Australian director Alex Proyas who is behind such films as The Crow (personal favourite), DarkCity and I Robot (but don’t hold that against him). The entire film was shot in Melbourne and the utterly breathtaking special-effects were all done in Australian and New Zealand. Unlike many a Cage film, the mouth-dropping effects don’t draw away from what is essentially a very well acted and packaged film. It’s not a light, fun, flighty, chunk of entertainment with the happy ending you might expect from the poorly done reviews.
The concept, oh the concept. The brilliance behind the concept of and how superbly such ideas were presented makes me tend to side with Davo Stratton on this one, Knowing will indeed be looked back upon as a "contemporary sci-fi classic".