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The awful Nicolas Cage movie Roger Ebert adored
Roger Ebert adored 'Knowing', the 2009 Nicolas Cage film that was lambasted by almost every other critic in the world. Read more about it here.
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Film » Cutting Room Floor
Wed 12 February 2025 17:45, UK
By and large, movie critics generally tend to settle into a consensus about a film: this is good, this is bad, this is middling. Every now and again, though, a film divides the critical community and leads to intense debate on both sides. However, on even rarer occasions than that, there is a movie that is widely derided by almost every critic worth their salt â except one, who makes a stand by firmly planting their flag and saying, âThis movie is good. Youâre all wrong.â The great Roger Ebert did this in 2009 with a Nicolas Cage movie that was lambasted from pillar to post. Hell, he even wrote follow-up articles bemoaning the taste of his fellow critics.
When Cage teamed up with The Crow and Dark City director Alex Proyas for a sci-fi thriller dealing with the end of the world, there was significant cause for optimism. Proyas has never been a filmmaker who just pumps out material, and he hadnât made a film since 2004âs I, Robot, so it stood to reason that he was passionate about this script. Similarly, at that time, Cage had yet to tumble into his direct-to-DVD wilderness years and could still be relied upon to deliver good box office returns with his action movies.
The film was, of course, Knowing, which saw Cage play a professor who finds a list of strange numbers in a time capsule that seems to predict worldwide disasters. Unfortunately, even though it did respectable business at the box office, the reviews were crushingly negative, with the plot being dismissed as absurd, Cageâs âfright wigâ laughed at, and the movieâs po-faced tone derided.
This was all a shock to Ebert, though, who filed his review immediately after watching the film on the Monday before its release. He legitimately loved the film, awarding it his full four stars and gushing, âKnowing is among the best science-fiction films Iâve seen â frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome.â He found Proyasâ storytelling to be âexpert and confidentâ and felt the tension was kept at a fever pitch for the entire runtime. He found Cage compelling in âanother wound-up, edgy performanceâ and felt the special effects were sensational.
After being âblindsidedâ by the avalanche of negativity toward the movie he raved about, Ebert wrote a follow-up article addressing the disparity in opinion. With his opening gambit, Ebert wrote, âEither Iâm wrong, or most of the movie critics in America are mistaken. I persist in the conviction that Alex Proyasâs Knowing is a splendid thriller and surprisingly thought-provoking.â
Ebert acknowledged that the movieâs plot is absurd, but he maintained, âThatâs part of the charm.â He explained that in normal circumstances, heâd been known to pick apart the logical inconsistencies in films, but Knowing kept him so engrossed that he âsimply didnât careâ if some of it didnât make much sense.
To the esteemed critic, complaints about Knowing boiled down to two aspects: Cage and the reading of the film as a Biblical allegory. He couldnât get on board with the first complaint, partly because heâs always been a Cage fan but also because he felt that eccentricity perfectly suited this film. âCage has two speeds, intense and intenser,â Ebert wrote. âI like both speeds. I find him an intriguing actor because he takes chances.â
Amazingly, he then took a shot at Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt, and George Clooney, all of whom he has âgreat affectionâ for. However, he argued they simply couldnât do what Cage does in Knowing, which is akin to being âa lion-tamer on a high wire.â As he put it, âAnybody can play the ringmaster.â Oh, and he also took umbrage with the âfright wigâ comment from one of his fellow reviewers, which he dubbed âmean-spirited snark.â
Some critics argued that the movie had religious overtones, citing the Book of Ezekiel as a model and seemingly taking this as a negative, but Ebert didnât see it as such. He acknowledged that he noticed the Biblical themes and wondered if the aliens shown at the end were actually supposed to be angels. However, he appreciated that the movie left the audience with as many questions as answers. âThe ending is spectacular enough that it brings closure if not explanation,â Ebert wrote. âI donât have to know if the beings are aliens or angels. Nobody in the movie does.â
To his credit, Ebert doubled down on his opinion and wrote a third piece about the film: a blog entry that engendered lots of discussion on his websiteâs talkback section. In response to one reader asking, âDo you feel frustrated or intimidated when you are out there by yourself?â Ebert responded unequivocally: âNot when Iâm right.â
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Nicolas CageRoger Ebert
