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"Blaming Cage"

After putting our 3-month old daughter to bed one night, my wife and I grabbed a glass of wine and sat down to watch a movie.  After sifting through an endless list of choices, we decided to watch “Knowing”, starring Nicolas Cage.  Please note, the following letter may include spoilers, though I would be remiss to mention that it’s not actually spoiling much… 

-----------------------

July 29, 2009                          

Nicolas Cage
c/o Summit Entertainment
1630 Stewart St
Santa Monica, CA 90404

Dear Mr. Cage,

I am writing to you to request a refund of the $5.99 I recently spent to watch your movie “Knowing” on Comcast On Demand HD.  This is not something that I regularly do, but after sitting through this movie I feel as though I was completely deceived.

I have certainly enjoyed many of your movies in the past.  I was a fan of the National Treasure series, and a bigger fan of The Rock.  I enjoyed Windtalkers, Face/Off, Gone in 60 Seconds, Con Air and Raising Arizona.  I thought you were excellent in Leaving Las Vegas – for which you won the Best Actor Oscar – even though Braveheart was by far my most favorite movie that year and I thought Mel Gibson was robbed (he wasn’t even nominated for Best Actor).

When my wife and I sat down to enjoy a movie last week, we had a few different options available to us.  One possibility was the movie “Knowing”, starring Nicolas Cage.  Being a fan of yours, I had a good idea what our eventual selection would be.

The trailer helped us solidify our choice.

“A LIST OF NUMBERS UNEARTHED IN A TIME CAPSULE.”

You: “They were buried in the ground for five decades!”

“PREDICTED EVERY GLOBAL DISASTER FROM THE PAST FIFTY YEARS.”

Your son: “Dad?  It’s more than that, isn’t it?”

“IT ALSO WARNS OF THOSE STILL TO COME.”

You: “The numbers are the key to everything!”

“NICHOLAS CAGE”

You (in the subway):  “Get off the train!”

“KNOWING.”

Interspersed between these phrases were high energy scenes depicting plane crashes and train crashes.  We were hooked.

And dare I say, the first 45 minutes of the movie were excellent.  It was exactly what we expected from the trailer.  Action, a mystery, more action, mystery solved, more action…

Then something else began to happen.  The story took a wild turn that included human-like alien beings who were somehow involved in a plot to kidnap children (including your son), throw them in their spacecraft, watch the Earth be destroyed by a solar flare and restart life on some other planet.

At least I think that’s what it was.  I fell asleep multiple times as the story dragged on into unexpected territory.  If not for the few snoozes I caught, the last hour of this movie was one of the biggest wastes of time in my life.  I will never get that hour back.

Normally, I would just accept the fact that I just happened to watch a bad movie.  But this goes beyond that.  This was clear case of deception.  You had to know that the alien storyline was going to blow up the movie.  Otherwise, why would there be no mention of it in the trailer?!?!

The trailer had nothing about aliens, nothing about killer solar flares… as if you knew the rest of the movie was awful and if you threw even a glimpse of that part in the trailer, everyone would realize how stupid the movie really was.

I am not trying to embarrass you or point you out in particular.  The first 45 minutes of this movie are very watchable.  But the second half was one of my more disappointing experiences in movie history.  Normally, I enjoy your movies and I simply don’t feel as though this effort was indicative of your past work.

Please send $5.99 to:

Scott Riecke
xxxx Beacon St, Apt xxx
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467

Thank you very much.  I look forward to your next movie and hope that it is a return to the type of product we are used to seeing from Nicolas Cage.

Sincerely,

Scott Riecke

 

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