KNOW1NG – reviewed

2 stars out of 5

SPOILERS in review

and this is a long post - so buckle your seat belt..

I went with a bunch of friends to see the newest Nicholas Cage film last night and began loving it… only to feel like once again I wasted $8.50.

First off – the FX were breathtaking and disturbingly realistic in places. Kudos.

It went from cool to creepy cool to absurd to downright disappointly offensive. (not as in call the ACLU, but like… “really? Are you serious? ugh! This is why I avoided the Da Vinci Code”)

The film sparked a great discussion afterward as we hung around and eventually the management told us they needed to lock up for the night and we needed to head out.

The premise of the movie can be mostly ascertained from the trailer. (see previous post)

The movie starts with some great light/dark allusions.

A main character’s name is Lucinda (meaning: beautiful light) Embry (an obvious nod to the word ember)
The shots of the earth at night slowly coming to “light” as towns and cities switch on.
The elementary class singing “This Little Light of Mine” – albeit stripped of it’s original spiritual connotations.

So far intriguing…

Nic Cage’s character (John) is a single-parent, widower astrophysicist wrestling with eternal questions of purpose vs random coincidence to the universe. We learn that his father, who is estranged with, is a pastor and his sister (Grace) continues to be a voice of ‘faith’ in his world. John’s faith in ‘purpose’ (or order, or design, or will, or sovereignty – take your pick) died when his wife died in a horrific hotel fire years ago.

As John begins to discover the predictions in the letter coming to pass and his inability to stop them, he begins to wonder again if there is purpose, design and order.

Here’s where the movie began to get cool/creepy.

His son, Caleb, who has a hearing impairment, begins hearing (and later seeing) ‘the whisper people’ – at first one lone figure who looks like Keifer Sutherland from Lost Boys in a Matrix trench coat.

Then more figures begin to appear.

This is where it begins to verge on absurd.

The ‘whisper people’ are also seen by John (Nic Cage) and they all dress alike and have that 80’s new wave, Depeche Mode look to them. So now every time we see them, it begins to look like an 80’s-new-wave-Matrix obsessed band posing for their latest [dark] album cover. Laughable. Creepy… but laughable.

SPOLIERS START HERE
The numbers: date, number of dead and GPS coordinates – so you know when and where. But the last number ends with EE and no GPS.

Depehce Mode - are they part of a shadow element of the govt.? are they angels? Demons? They turn out to be able to do some remarkable things – disappear, shoot blinding light out of their mouths. Scratch out govt. conspiracy. Bible angels are fearsome in their appearance, but they don’t stalk people and scare the snot out of 10 yr olds who are sleeping. In fact, most of the time they tell people, “do not be afraid.”
So.. demons? Or……hmmmm?

Lucinda (the girl from the start of the movie who wrote down the numbers) is long dead...but has left one final note scratched into the underside of her bed in her trailer home before she OD’d – John finds this: Everyone Else

So now John figures out when the end of the earth will take place. He also sees that Lucinda was fascinated with a wood engraving Bible picture of Ezekiel’s vision (torn from said Bible). Ah… now it begins to dawn on me where this is headed. I have just wasted $8.50.

Here comes the ‘Ezekiel saw a UFO’ story again.. the denial of a sovereign Creator-Redeemer God. Oooh and look at the picture again…. ‘God’ is surrounded by blazing light. Some of these film makers / screen writers need to READ what Ezekiel says he saw and read good ol’ ‘Zeke’s message! He wasn’t about UFOs!

Being an astrophysicist, John realizes the end of the world happens tomorrow due to a massive solar flare. What to do… what to do… hide in caves? Go back to Lucinda’s house??

As an aside – John’s parenting is so bad it is more than laughable.

- He drinks to excess – in fact in one scene he awakes at 3:25 in the afternoon after a long night of TV and JD to a phone call from Caleb wondering if he’s going to pick him up from school. Hello?? How did Caleb even get to school that day???
- His kid, Caleb, goes to talk to strangers in a car ALONE out front of the house. How does John respond, “didn’t I tell you not to talk to strangers?” and pretty much leaves it at that – no concern, no why not to, no what did they say…sheesh
- Knowing and having seen the ‘whisper people’ (Depeche Mode) stalk his kid… John leaves Caleb and another child ALONE in a vehicle at night in the deep of the forest while he and Rose Byrne (what was her character’s name – Diane?) go to investigate the scary trailer. Hmm wonder what’s going to happen?
Anyway back to fairy land… Depeche mode have offered the kids that they can escape the coming doom if they choose to ‘leave’ with them.

Later DM steal the kids – I guess they honored the kids’ choice? Scratch off angels again. Demons?....hmmm or….

You guessed it – ALIENS!!! The aliens have come to rescue a few ‘chosen’ children to ‘start over’ on another planet - only those who 'heard the call', since Earth is doomed. The aliens are the ones who have been giving the warnings through the numbers and whispers (which btw lead people to insanity).

Their spaceship is – you guessed it – a wheel within a wheel!

Depeche Mode shed their human exteriors and become faceless, genderless beings of light whose radiating ‘essence’ is purposefully shaped to be like wings. Ah, so Ezekiel saw aliens and described them as best he could as having wings. Absurd.

The kids finally decide to go with the aliens, Nic Cage reluctantly agrees to let his kid go and contradictingly tells his son not to worry because they will be together again (in heaven) – wait… is there a heaven… or this… evolved alien reality?

The spaceships leave. Nic/john is reunited with his pastor-dad who assures them that ‘this isn’t the end.’ Either suggesting heaven is next (but wait…I thought this was aliens) or that the coming reality of the Earth’s destruction won’t be due to a solar flare. Possibly intimating that Christians blindly hold to the events in Revelation, Daniel and other end-time prophecies as real future events.) And just to be clear... after having recently re-read Revelation I think that a massive solar flare is quite possible and would do enormous damage(REV 16:8). that and a possible asteroid strike (REV 8:8). Read the Book... you'll see.

Earth is destroyed – yep I warned you of spoilers – and the aliens deposit the kiddos on another lush planet complete with a single huge tree in the middle of the field. The message here could not be more clear. It is not God who put man in the garden with a tree. We are here on earth because of aliens who dropped us here. And someday… in the benevolence/malevolence they will move us when the time comes.

This mockery and denial of the truths of the Bible is pretty in your face.

I once had a discussion with a guy who refused to believe that Jesus was God-in-the-flesh… but would entertain the idea that Jesus was an alien we all just misunderstood.
I wish people would read what Jesus said before making such ludicrous statements.

When I was exploring Christianity, I wondered how ‘aliens and UFOs’ fit in with everything. So I’ve done a lot of reading on the subject.

I definitely believe in a spirit world. I believe in light & dark, angels & demons, truth & deception… and believe that ‘aliens’ an the message of this film are demonic in origin. Of the recorded ‘statements’ that ‘abductees’ have ‘received’ from aliens a consistent message comes across – “why do you keep making such a big deal out of Jesus?” Never Mohammed, Allah, Buddah, Krishna… Always the attacks are against Jesus. The Creator-Redeemer God.

The deception..subtle and not-so subtle is this… aliens (demons in masquerade) are here to ultimately save us because they put us here – and there is no need for belief in God – especially Jesus the Christ.

“… Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”
2 Corinthians 11:14 (NIV)

KNOW1NG

next to see:

Ember

Em-ber
Pronunciation: \ˈem-bər\
n : a hot glowing or smoldering fragment of wood or coal left from a fire
plural : slowly dying or fading emotions, memories, ideas, or responses still capable of being revived.

The City of Ember

Based on the 2003 novel by Jeanne Duprau, this is a movie whose trailer intrigued me, though I didn’t see it until we Redbox-ed it the other night.

Aside from the cheesy CGI waterslide boat scenes near the end, I loved this movie in much the same way that I have grown fond of the Narnia books.

Rather than recap the plot here, you can read it here

The spiritual overtones for me were immediate.

The film begins with the end of the world (the fall in the garden) and of necessity – to ensure mankind is not destroyed - humanity is removed from that world to an underground world of comparative darkness. Exit Eden. Side note: Adam and Eve were not kicked out simply as a punishment but to protect them from then eating of the tree of (eternal) life and thus being trapped in a state of separation from God for eternity.

Ember’s builder’s have ensured it’s inhabitants can find the way out of Ember back to the surface – a world of light – by following the directions contained in a box… a box which is lost for a time. Which reminded me of the story of Josiah in 2 Kings 22. Not a mirror story, mind you, but a glimpse or reminder of that story.

In a world that is steadily heading to ruin and falling apart two children, Doon and Lina, believe the old tales that there is a better land – one outside of Ember; a land of light. They come this conclusion based not only on these tales, but on the evidence they find in the box – the map, the directions and the key.

Apart from a few principal characters, most citizen of Ember scoff at this notion - discouraging the children from pursuing their quest – though ironically the rulers have outlawed any quest for the other land.

Followers of Christ too believe in a land of light away from this decaying, entropic world, and we trust that the Builder has given us the knowledge to know the way to that place, through His Word, by His Son.

Now just to clarify, the Bible does not offer a way out based upon cryptic clues, or obedience to a list of commands. Hebrews reminds us of this and the promise to Adam and Abraham were of a Messiah to come.. but not based upon Adam or Abraham’s actions. The Gospel is about God condescending to our level – wearing our humanity and dying in our stead since we are unable to atone for our sins since we are incapable. And this He does freely out of His love.

Like the City of Ember – we live in a world that denies the existence of that other land, scoffs at the notion, and in many places the information about how to get there - the Bible (the New Testament in particular) is outlawed in many countries and is disallowed in more places in the U.S.

But the ember remains of the land of Light – hope is not snuffed out, and those who seek for it with child-like faith and curiosity still find it.

“Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:12-13