From the trailers of Knowing you’d be convinced that you’re going to watch a cheesy, try to save the world picture with a wound tight Nicolas Cage at the center gritting his teeth and ducking his way to the perfect ending. Well, you’d be partially correct. Cage is definitely giving his wound tight hero routine that he’s worked so hard to develop over the last half dozen films. As for the cheese factor, that’s where you’ll be surprised. Director Alex Proyas manages to deliver a rather decent sci-fi flick that has plenty of suspense and intelligence.

The plot turns around John Koestler (Nicolas Cage), an MIT astrophysics nerd turned Indiana Jones when a time capsule is discovered at his young son Caleb’s (Chandler Canterbury) school. Inside are drawings from students in 1959 predicting what things would be like in 2009 some 50 years later. The drawing that Caleb comes home with isn’t a drawing at all but a series of seemingly random numbers. Koestler becomes obsessed with the numbers and their meaning or what they seem to mean. The whole thing shakes him to his scientific core and a quest has begun.

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The film is very lucky to have director Alex Proyas from films such as Dark City which is his true geek film and critical acclaim as well as I, Robot and Garage Days. The visual and special effects are outstanding. It was surprising how much suspense was in the script (Ryan Douglas Pearson and Juliet Snowden) which gave the film a real thriller atmosphere which continues to build in tone as the mystery is unravelled.

I admit I went into this film expecting a rehash of National Treasure on a more global scale. The sci-fi aspect of the premise is very well thought out and told. The acting by co-stars (Chandler Canterbury, Rose Byrne and Lara Robinson) are solid performances and stand in complementary contrast to that of the tightly wound Nicolas Cage. The geek factor of Knowing is rather high with lots of number configurations and what-if scenarios which is great for the sci-fi fans. At times your brain may have to turn on in order to follow the film, but that is what made Knowing such a pleasant surprise to me.*

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Certainly worth seeing.

* I take real issue with the posters of this film. There are so many chances to illustrate this film through the poster that are just clearly thrown away. Instead what we are left with is the typical giant head of Nicolas Cage and then the boring shot of the Earth with something bad about to happen. The earth shot might have been okay ten years ago but The War of the Worlds, Tom Cruise flick poster was more imaginative that this one. Poster choices here are very disappointing.

It has been confirmed that Ghost Rider is coming back for a second run. Nicolas Cage is signed for the sequel which might be the only good news. I don’t recall much good coming from the first version. Even my son that loves Ghost Rider wasn’t convinced by the first film attempt. No word yet if we’ll see Peter Fonda come back as Metostopholes.

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The box office on Ghost Rider No. 1 was $228 million and cost $110 million which does not fair well for a franchise such as this one to build upon. But not knowing what the side deals concerning merchandising, the real money is just been primed. If the merchandisers have even turned the slightest profit then they will want to milk the poor Rider for all he is worth.

The comic books which is under my good friends at Marvel are gold. We need some of these writers this time around as well as a new director for No. 2 if they plan on giving Ghost Rider Johnny Blaze a decent ride this second time around.

Johnny first appeared as the Ghost Rider in Marvel Spotlight vol. 1, #5 (Aug. 1972). He was created by Gary Friedrich and artist Mike Ploog. He received his own series in 1973, with penciller Jim Mooney handling most of the first nine issues. Several different creative teams mixed-and-matched until penciller Don Perlin began a long stint with #26, eventually joined by writer Michael Fleisher through #58. This Ghost Rider’s career ended when Zarathos fled Johnny’s body in issue #81 (June 1983), the finale. Johnny occasionally appeared in the subsequent, 1990-1998 series Ghost Rider, which starred a related character, Daniel Ketch. In 2001 he returned for six issues written by Devon Grayson, followed by the 2005 incarnation by Garth Ennis, and an ongoing monthly that began publication in July 2006.