Blu-Review of the Week - 7/17/09 - Knowing
Blu-Review of the
Week – 7/17/09
Knowing
Most people either really like Nicolas Cage, or despise the
ground he walks on. I’m somewhere
in the middle, but lean more towards the former. I’ve enjoyed many of his films; Raising Arizona, World Trade
Center and the National Treasure films are all very entertaining to me. On the other side of that, Ghost Rider
and Windtalkers can eat it! So, when I hear about the film Knowing, I was on
the fence. The trailer looked good
to me, but what are the odds the film would hold up? I have to admit that I was pleasantly surprised.
MOVIE – 7.5/10
Knowing is a thriller centering around John Koestler (Cage)
who is a professor. The local
grade school unearths a time capsule that had been buried years earlier. John’s son is a recipient of one of the
letters inside the capsule, which were written by the students back in the
day. The letter consists only of
random numbers, which John deciphers as predictions of world disasters; past,
present and future. As the film
progresses you realize that John and his son are more involved with these
happenings than they think.
It’s a solid thriller in my opinion. Could you tear this movie’s plot to
shreds if you really wanted to…sure.
Does Cage figure out the formula in the numbers way to
quickly…absolutely. However, if
you take it for what it is (a fun popcorn thriller with some spectacular
effects) I really think you’ll enjoy it.
I was even impressed with the finale. Without giving anything else away, I’ve always been a fan of
this kind of story. I think that
director Alex Proyas (The Crow, Dark City) really put a lot of love into this
film and it shows. If nothing else
this is definitely worth a rental that will really tax your system (home
theater system that is…).
VIDEO – 9/10
Knowing was shot on RED One cameras, capable of capturing up
to 4K resolutions (4 times the resolution of 1080p). Needless to say, it’s Ultra HD. The film is downconverted to 1080p for the Blu-ray, and the
results are stunning! This is
absolute demo material. The image
is razor sharp, and the detail is spectacular. There isn’t a hint of noise or compression artifacts. The only reason I lowered the score to
a 9 isn’t because of the quality of the transfer, but rather the color palette
of the film. This is not a vivid
and colorful world we are in on Knowing.
The chroma is a bit muted and doesn’t really pop. Many scenes are on the dark side, but
help to tell the story of the bleak future they are facing. The heavy effects scenes impress the
most (especially the finale) and make you appreciate it even more. Compare this with other top tier
transfers like Pirates, Speed Racer and most CG films and this may not impress
as much, but on it’s own you can’t help but notice how solid this transfer is. Good Stuff!
AUDIO – 9/10
Thankfully the audio is just as good as the video. The DTS-HD soundtrack is awesome, and
will definitely give your subwoofer and entire package a good workout. The subway scene is incredible, with
great separation between the front, rear and sides. The voices are crystal clear, and the decent score really
shines in spots. All around,
there’s not much to complain about here.
EXTRAS 4.5/10
I was very disappointed with the extras on this disc, and it
keeps this release from being a 5 star title for me. There’s hardly anything here, and what is here is really
just mediocre at best. I wanted to
see extensive behind the scenes on the Subway crash (which is only touched on
very briefly in the Knowing All featurette) as well as how they used RED
cameras to shoot the film. This is
one of the first feature films to use RED cameras exclusively, so they really
missed out on the opportunity to let the fans in on the use of a new
technology. So much more could
have been put on this disc. Here’s
a rundown of the little that we do get.
- Knowing All: The Making of a Futuristic Thriller (12:36) HD
This is pretty much a standard
making of. It does show some of
the crafting of the impressive special effects, but not nearly as much as I was
hoping. They barely touch on the
subway crash at all which to me was easily the best scene in the film. Nothing really stands out in this
featurette unfortunately.
- Visions of the Apocalypse (17:15) HD
This talks about the fascination
humans have about the end of days.
It’s done pretty well, and really feels like you are watching one of
those History channel shows (which is a good thing). It also talks about some of the themes in the film and how
they relate, such as the large role that numbers and sun flares play in the
plot. Overall this is the best
extra, but that’s not saying much.
- BD-Live
You can tell that Summit
Entertainment is still shaping their BD-Live strategy, but there is some
promise here. Unfortunately,
selections like Special Features, My Account, and even FAQ all say coming soon
at this point which is pretty disheartening that nothing is there for the
release of this Blu-ray. Who knows
how long it will take to get content up there. They do have a trailers section where you can download SD or
HD versions of six different films, and a My Downloads section to store the
content you’ve kept. The problem
is, out of the six trailers to choose from, three of them (Push, Astro-Boy and
the Brothers Bloom) all play as soon as you launch the Blu-ray. What’s the point of being able to
download these? Plus, the trailer
for Knowing is downloadable here, but not available on the disc itself. Pretty weak. It does, however, have the trailer for New Moon, which made
my wife happy to say the least.
FINAL VERDICT
I’m sure I’ll take my share of
heat for enjoying this film. It’s
the nature of the beast with most Cage entries. I’ve never been too critical of most films, as I just want
to enjoy them and take my mind off things for a couple of hours. This film helped me do that. It had solid pacing (if a bit too
swift) to keep it interesting from start to finish, and I was pleased with the
wrap-up. I won’t be giving it any
end of the year awards, but it was a fun watch for sure. The disc’s presentation is
excellent. The video and audio are
easily worthy of demo material.
Only the extras were a letdown for me, as I really think they could have
added a lot to the technology behind the film. I highly doubt they are planning a double dip deluxe edition
of this one, so we are probably stuck with what they gave us unless the Special
Features on BD-Live provide what I am looking for. Overall, this is a solid disc, which I easily suggest for
everyone to check out.
FINAL SCORE – 7.5/10 – RENT!
The ending of this movie didn't make any sense to me. Rest of the movie was good though. I actually like Cages movies for the most part. They are entertaining and thats all I ask for.
