Knowing

What a weird movie...

50 years ago at William Dawes Elementary School, Lucindia Embry suggested to make a time capsule with letters to kids of the future. Lucindia fills her paper with numbers and is stopped before she finishes, which ends up in the hands of Caleb (in the present). Caleb starts to hear strange whisperings, but ignores it because he thinks it's just feedback from his hearing aid. Caleb's (Chandler Canterburry) alchoholic, widow, melancholy, etc etc father, John Koestler (Nicholas Cage), finds it and deciphers it. He finds out that the numbers are the date, death tolls, and coordinates of major disasters over the past fifty years. So...what happens when the numbers end? They stalk Lucinda's daughter Diana Wayland (Rose Byrne) and her daughter, who also hears whispers, to find out the rest of the numbers, but the future looks grim anyways. Will the whispering "people" save them?

Good alcoholic-widow-daddy

I wish the movie had a better direction. The trailers got me hyped up to see this mystery-thriller, but I ended up disappointed. However, with the brilliant acting from Nicholas Cage, he saved it and Knowing became the best movie in the world...

Brilliant acting--so many different emotions

Just kidding. Nicholas Cage had one face throughout the whole movie. Maybe he is just confused all the time. Maybe his eyebrows are permanently fixed upon his head like that. Whatever it is, his acting made Knowing a little stale and boring. I have got to say that end-of-the-world movies are becoming more and more unoriginal these days. Aliens? Exploding sun? Religion? Weirdo possessed girl? Check, check, check, and check. It was like the writers wanted to squish everything that makes a movie "cool" to make the ultimate movie, but like David and Goliath, less is more. The second half of this movie was surprising and unpredictable, mostly because it's completely outrageous complete with plot holes and raised eyebrows (from me and Nicholas Cage). 

Aaak! The eyebrows are contagious!

Wanted

Wait a minute...why is Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) only on the tiny corner of the poster? Isn't he the main character? Nope, Fox (Angelina Jolie) stole the show.

Wesley Gibson has it bad. His life sucks. His boss is crazy annoying, his girlfriend is cheating on him with his best friend, and he has absolutely no search results when he googles his name. It all changes when he meets Fox and gets into a gun fight/car chase. Fox tells him that his father was an assassin murdered by an assassin and introduces him to the Fraternity. The pact leader, Sloan (Morgan Freeman) says that he could be a superhuman like Fox if he used his panic attacks to his advantage and ultimately take revenge for his father. He trains and ups his endurance, strenth, etc, etc, and joins The Fraternity in assassinating the people that the Loom of Fate spells out. 

Oh boy. Wesley the Loser has a panic attack again

Wanted was an awesome action-adventure ride. The fighting scenes were very cool and nicely choreographed. Wesley Gibson was great at screaming his head off in the beginning of the film and Jolie had enough kick-butt to cover for that loser. Everything is slick until Sloan introduces the magic loom: total what the heck moment. Stand aside, Morgan Freeman. It's the Loom of Fate's turn to play God. Then came the magic bath..then the magic bullets...then the "I am your father" thing...then the exploding rats. It's a cool concept, but a bit too technical for me. And Mythbusters busted the curving bullets myth.

"This is me taking back control of my life. What the f*** have you done lately?"