Recommended. Two Assassins (Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt) are married to each other and don’t even know it because their lives are such a secret – until they become marks for each other’s secret agencies and have to kill each other. What a pleasant surprise this little gem was. Sure, it’s a popcorn action flick on the level of a married James Bond, but it is so much more. It is a brilliant metaphor for communication and honesty in marriage. When the two are trying to kill each other, any married person can relate to their fighting, but of course on a certainly less than lethal level. But that’s the fun of it. It takes the real issues of fighting in marriage and makes them into comic book action fun. I loved it! And it rang so true to the struggles of marriage, the bickering the lack of communication, but finally the intimacy through honesty and communication, working through the problems. Here’s the theme as I saw it: Better sex through communication. All right, its more than that, but the whole point of the story is that these two were keeping secrets of who they really were from each other, and because of that, their marriage was sour, but they kept up the cover for the sake of their own pursuits. It is not until they find out that each other is an assassin that they get angry at each other and fight, but in their fighting, for the first time, they finally open up and truly communicate their genuine feelings. Yes, it requires a bit of fighting, but it solves the slump in their marriage, because they come to know each other more intimately than ever. The movie starts with them in counseling because they are distant from each other and have no sex. But then, after discovering their true identities and fighting through their feelings together, they bond together, overcome the enemy and heal their marriage, ending in great sex! This is profound stuff in such an otherwise “light” film. This movie worked on a mythic level for me. What a refreshing change of pace from so many boring action movies without heart or meaning. And quite a bit ironic as well, considering the home-wrecking relationship these two had off screen. How typical of Hollywood to make movies of good values that are spit upon by these same people in their own lives.
Action
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
Not Recommended. A gazillion dollar extravagant waste of two and a half hours. Yeah! It’s finally over! Sorry, Star Wars fans, I only like the original two, Episodes 4 and 5. But there were a few cool things in this one. The Special effects were great, but empty and ultimately boring because the drama was so uninspiring. Also, very cool how Lucas was able to weave together a story that would ultimately set up for A New Hope and Empire, and explain the background for them. Ridiculous lines: After a crash landing, Obi Wan says, “Another happy landing.” Overall cool concept of the analogy with Hitler’s Germany, the story replicates how Hitler, seized power to make Germany his empire while being a Chancellor with emergency powers. Order 66: the execution of all the Emperor’s enemies and Jedis was a reflection of the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 when Hitler killed his questionable enemies in the SA and elsewhere. Okay, I liked that analogy. Battles: Boring. Especially when they are fighting droids, who are merely little machines. There is no seriousness to destroying machines, no human element to make it scary. Unforgivable inconsistent philosophy: Obi Wan tells Anakin to go ahead and deal with the senate because, “I’m not brave enough for politics. I have to report to the counsel (of Jedi).” And what, may I ask, is a counsel of Jedis, BUT A FREAKIN’ POLITICAL BODY that is just as political as the Senate?! And all in the same sentence is this contradiction. Unforgivable, it is. When the “turned” Anakin says to Obi Wan, in an obvious reference to Jesus, “you are either for me or against me,” Obi says, “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.” But then a few minutes later, Obi tells Anakin the “Chancellor is evil.” Oh? Well, Mr. supposed-to-be-wise-man, if there are no absolutes, then how can you call the Chancellor evil? Are you a Sith now? Actually, Anakin responds with a good line that reveals the dark side as Relativistic: “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil.” I think this is great. The evil side are postmoderns and relativistic. The bad guy even says the Jedi are “narrow minded and dogmatic, we must study all sides of the force to understand the bigger picture.” Yeah! All you relativists and pomos out there are victims of the dark side. Na na na na! But then Lucas contradicts himself because to be dogmatic, as he says the Jedi are, is to be absolutistic, which is what Obi said the Sith were. Sheesh! Stop the pain! But the contradictions don’t stop. More Buddhist B.S. occurs when Anakin is told by a Jedi that “Fear of loss is a path to the dark side. Attachment leads to jealousy, Let go of everything you fear to lose.” This Eastern style philosophy of detachment is what makes the East so cruel and heartless to pain and suffering. They fight against compassion, you know the kind of thing that Jesus said we should have with the suffering. But instead this “detachment” makes Eastern culture into a barbaric cruelty to those who suffer, by ignoring them, and avoiding the attachment that love brings to the object of affection. This is why Eastern monks are so heartless and uncompassionate. They cannot make true human connection because that would be attachment. This is definitely the philosophy of Hollywood celebrity. The Eastern worldview is soulless and cruel. Here is a great ridiculous line that telegraphs the poor philosophy that this whole mythology is about. When Obi can’t find someone he is looking for, Yoda tells him, “Use your feelings, and find him, you will.” Well, obviously the line should be “use the Force.” So we see that the Force really is just a metaphor for your feelings. Once again, follow your heart, not an absolute objective truth. Let your feelings rule you. Well, I’ve got to stop. I’ve already given this blog way too much time on this unworthy movie.
The Kingdom of Heaven
Not really recommended. Ridley Scott is one of the finest filmmakers in Hollywood. He is really quite brilliant with the look of all his films from Alien on up to Gladiator. But this movie turns out to be another Troy, a humanistic dismissal of religion. It deals with the Crusade of 1184 and focuses on a young Blacksmith, Balian, who becomes a knight and make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in order to insure his dead wife’s forgiveness for committing suicide, a decidedly non-Christian motive. His estranged father, encourages him to go to Jerusalem because all can be forgiven there in the Holy City, “a better world, a kingdom of conscience,” now presided over by a good Christian king who allows Christians, Jews and Muslims to live together in peace. Balian’s theme is pretty much spelled out in the plaque he has over his blacksmith shop: “What man is a man who does not make the world better.” (by the end of this movie, this saying ends up meaning, “be good without God, cause being good matters more than religion”) Okay, there are some good qualities in this movie that I have to give credit to: It does show good knights and bad knights. At least they are not all marauding pillagers of infidels, which is the typical mischaracterization. Yes, there was much that was wrong in the Crusades. The Roman Catholic Church here was diabolical in its treatments at times of non-christians. But not all of it was evil. There were a lot of stories from the Crusades, and the one that is picked by the storytellers is the one that reflects their particular viewpoint. For instance, they did not show the Muslims raping and pillaging the Holy Land and stealing Jerusalem in the first place that started the whole mess. No, that would be politically incorrect. So, this is not the first Crusade. Along the lines of this, it is important to note the things that are chosen to be shown and those that are chosen to be left out. For instance, there is a strange lack of the word and concept of jihad in this movie, yet plenty of “crusade” language – Hmmmm. It is interesting that they show some kooky Catholic Priests or Christian “fanatics” preaching on street corners, “To kill an infidel is not murder, it is the path to heaven,” But they do not show the fact that MOST ALL Muslims believed and preached this very “kill the infidel” idea at the time. They show a city controlled by Christians who allow Muslims to pray to Allah if they pay a tax. Yet, they do not show the fact that it is Islam that is famous for this very notion of dhimmitude, that is, of allowing Christians to live if they pay a tax. Bat Ye’Or has written extensively on the slavery of Christians under dhimmitude in books like “The Decline of Eastern Christianity under Islam” and “Islam and Dhimmitude.” In these books she catalogs the cruelty experienced by Jews and Christians under Islamic rule. But the movie also shows a good side to both the Christian king Baldwin, and the Muslim leader Saladin, by showing Baldwin hanging Templar knights for murdering Muslims and showing Saladin put a fallen crucifix back up in its place after it had fallen in battle. Even though this movie is balanced in showing good and bad knights, good kings and bad kings, it is not so balanced when it comes to Islam. There are no real fanatics shown on the Islamic side, something that is painfully foolishly fallacious. This is especially grievous in the light of modern day fanaticism that is almost exclusively engaged in by Muslims. Saladin was famous for his evenhandedness in dealing with his enemies sometimes, but come on, there were just as many fanatical Muslims to match the ridiculous warmongering of Catholic Guy de Lusignan and his General, Reynald portrayed in the picture as cartoon villains who loved to kill. But no, the Muslims are portrayed as mere enemies, not as the fanatics that they were, even under Saladin. I guess Ridley Scott just doesn’t want to have a fatwah on his head, (that is, to be killed by Muslim fanatics) so he plays it safe by avoiding the full truth and makes the Muslims look less fanatical. One good side is that the filmmakers DO show both sides claiming that “God wills it” of their actions. That is, both sides claim God’s favor or direction. So who is right? In this story, it is neither, it is Humanistic peace and brotherhood that is preached. A perspective that completely misses the truth. This is basically the story of a humanist, Balian, who experiences the ravages of religion, and decides it is all destructive. Here is how it is done. Every religious claim, is countered by our hero with an individualistic self-righteous appeal to “goodness” without God as the source of that goodness. A chess game illustrates that “none of us choose our ends,” to which our hero replies, “the king may move a man, but the soul of a man belongs to the man.” Balian demands that the kingdom of heaven is a “kingdom of conscience or nothing.” That is, the individual and his own conscience against the mean cruel “institutionalized religion.” The ultimacy of the individual as opposed to the collective in this movie is pure humanism. As if evil comes from the collective, but not the individual. And whay, pray tell is the collective, save a group of individuals who agree on their individual consciences? Humanism leads the terror of collective oppression, but it does so under the guise of no absolutes. At least religions can be wrong in their understanding of absolutes and CHANGE. But with humanism, there is no absolute, just the Will to Power in the name of some undefinable unjustifiable “good” (a “good” they have already denied by denying absolutes). There is a great saying by one of the heroic knights. He spurns “religion,” “Religion is full of fanatics. Holiness is right action. Goodness is what God desires in the mind and in the heart.” There is a sense in which this is true, but in the context of the film it basically means, “All that matters is being good, which of course, can be done individually without God.” (The storytellers seem to have missed Jesus’ enforcement of the Old Testament Law, that the most important commands are TO LOVE GOD with all your heart and mind and love your neighbor. So loving God rightly IS THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT THING TO GOD, loving people according to HIS dictates is second, but an important second – Matthew 22:35-40.) Balian, the man without God, who claims throughout the film that God is not with him, cause he cannot feel him and cannot feel forgiveness even on the place of Christ’s crucifixion, this humanistic man is portrayed as having the highest ethic of all those religious believers around him. “God’s will” is always used as an obvious rationalization for personal gain throughout the movie. Balian is told that Jerusalem is great because once you are there, people “are not what they were born into, but what they have inside themselves to be.” This of course, is the humanistic FALSE supposition that all these religious believers are only their religion because that is what they were born into. Humanism presents itself as the great individualizer that allows people to be what THEY want to be. Of course, being born into religions or atheism or humanism IS OFTEN influential on a person’s beliefs, but the problem is that the world is full of hundreds of millions of converts that became NOT what they were raised to be. So it is simply a fallacy to suggest that we only believe what we were taught to believe. The question is NOT why we believe something, the question is whether what we believe is TRUE OR NOT. Truth is not determined by genetic origin within our psychologies, another humanistic ignorance. When Balian must gather his forces in Jerusalem to fight Saladin in an impossible battle, he says to them, “Your Muslim places of worship lie over Christian places of worship that lie over Jewish places of worship that were taken over by the Romans. Which is more holy? Who has claim? No one has claim. All have claim. We will defend Jerusalem for the people within its walls.” This typical contradictory proposition that all have claim and none have claim may sound wise in a pithy way, but it actually means nothing. If no one has claim, then “all” cannot have claim. What it really means is that the storytellers are telling us, your religious beliefs are irrelevant, my humanism is superior because I care about the people, not some religious claims, which are unprovable. This is the arrogance of humanism. It considers itself so superior to religions that it is above it all and better – as if it is its own god. But there is a problem here. Without the living transcendent God, people have no value, only the arbitrary value that those in power give them. So, ironically, if you take away Christianity, YOU DO NOT HAVE the love of people, you have the tyranny and manipulation of people. The fact of the matter is that the Roman Catholic Crusaders WERE NOT ACTING IN ACCORD WITH THE TEACHINGS OF JESUS. They were wrong NOT because they were religious, but because they did not follow their religion consistently or biblically. But the French Revolution and Communist Russia, now that is what you get of so-called, “liberty, equality, fraternity” the brotherhood of man without God. Humanists just want to get rid of religion and keep the ethics of religion, but the problem is that when they get rid of Christianity, they get rid of the ONLY THING that can give true and absolute value to the dignity and life of human beings. And they get rid of the absolutes that are the only foundation of ethics. They want to have Christian ethics without Christianity. This is patently absurd. Without an absolute Christian foundation of ethics, you are left with arbitrary rule of power. This will always end in tyranny and despotism, whether of the majority, the elite or of a dictator. May I remind the reader once again that yes, several million were killed in the name of religion over the 20 centuries, but HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS were murdered in but ONE CENTURY, the century of modernism without God. So, misguided religion is bad, but consistent humanism is one hundred times worse. The 20th century proved that modernism/humanism is more evil than all the worst of religions added together. So stop your belly aching. When Balian must burn the dead soldiers in the walls to keep from spreading disease, he is chastised by a priest for desecration, to which he replies, “God will understand. And if he does not, then he is not God, and it doesn’t matter.” Another pithy line that shows the arrogance of humanistic (and I might add, Thomistic Classical apologetics) that if God does not meet MY understanding of logic, then he is just not God. In other words, if God bows down and fits into MY (faulty) logical understanding, then I will allow him to be God, Which obviously means he wouldn’t be God if he had to do that. The real problem here was not that Christianity was absurd, but that the priests were prohibiting something (desecration) THAT WAS NOT PROHIBITED BY GOD (Matthew 15:2-9). Big difference, folks. Too much of Romanism was simply NOT BIBLICAL. So it is not Christianity that is absurd, it is Romanism, with it’s humanistic traditions that violated Scripture. At the end, Balian looks upon Jerusalem and says, “If this is the Kingdom of Heaven, let God do with it what he wills.” In other words, Balian is done with religion. He goes back to his home town to be a blacksmith again and have a wife. And when King Richard the Lionheart comes to town looking for Balian, the hero, Balian denies he is the man, and simply says he is a blacksmith. In other words, “I have had enough of religion and Christianity, I believe in just living my good life as a husband and worker, rather than the useless squabbles of religion.” So in this film, religion is tried and found wanting in favor of humanism. Unfortunately, it is humanism that ACTUALLY takes away the value and dignity of life, so the filmmakers are engaging in the classical Van Tillian parable of sitting on their Father’s knees in order to be able to slap the Father that gave them life. They deny the only warranted foundation of ethics, Christianity, and then try to have Christian morality without Christianity. But if there is no foundation of the Triune God, then THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS “GOOD” OR “FAIR” OR EVEN “EVIL.” There is simply opposing wills in conflict, without moral value attached to any act whatsoever.. How dare any humanist claim THEY know what is right or good, when there are millions who disagree with them. These humanists would impose their religion (and that is what it ultimately is, is religion) upon the rest of the world, all in the name of their definition of the “absolute good,” as they see it, a good, that they have already denied exists. And if there is no absolute good as defined by God, then who are they to impose their version of right or good on everybody else? There is no higher transcendence in this movie, just the disparagement of transcendence, which makes this movie an unsatisfying weak story without soul.
Sahara
Kinda recommended for popcorn fun only. I was a Dirk Pitt fan when I was a kid. And this is a an okay standard action fare type stunt film. But I don’t really have anything to say about it because it is not inspirational in any way. It’s just a bunch of action and stunts and treasure hunting. Why do I go to these films? I gotta say that these action movies are getting more and more boring to me. Action, action, action, stunts, stunts, stunts, special effects, special effects, special effects. This is all very empty to me. I am more intrigued by drama, humanity, emotion, relationships, people, human beings and the meaning of life. Okay, so that’s my bias. But life is short, and I want entertainment that challenges me as a human being to be better, to examine my life. All right, yes, the simplest version of inspiration to fight evil is the action movie. And that in and of itself is good. I won’t deny that. But I just want more. I want a deeper meaning or at least a rudimentary exploration of the complexities of human nature. Life is too short to waste it on empty action.
Sin City
Not Recommended. This is a visual masterpiece of cinematography that more accurately translates a black and white graphic novel into cinema than any other movie has ever done. Splashes of color on a black and white canvas, harsh contrasts of light and dark, surreal landscapes, exaggerated characters. It is inescapably brilliant in this aspect. BUT it is pornography. And I don’t mean merely the sexual softcore porn that litters its celluloid like a two hour Victoria’s Secret Ad on steroids, but the violence is also pornographic and exploitative. This is a juvenile male fantasy, with all the women as sex objects—literally all of them tramping around in leather and lingerie AND shooting guns — the two male idols of the mind. And it is an orgy of revenge without redemption. The most extreme violence you can imagine contextualized as legitimate because it’s less bad guys giving it to worse bad guys. And for that reason it will do extremely well in the box office and monstrously better on DVD with all the myriads of teenage youth who should NOT be ingesting this filth watching it by the droves. And they wonder why kids are killing kids with guns in our schools. Its various episodes are all based on vengeance. Mickey Rourke is Marv, a killer who goes on a killing rampage of criminals connected to the murder of the only woman who would sleep with his ugly mug, a high class call girl. And because the ultimate killer is himself a sick cannibalistic serial killer who mounts the heads of his victims on the wall, well, it’s supposed to be all right that Marv cuts off the cannibal’s arms and legs and keeps him alive to have his own wolf eat him alive. And oh, yeah, the serial killer, of course, READS A BIBLE with a cross on it, once again linking Christianity with the worst of the worst in humanity. Religious bigotry at its finest. And this is the kind of stuff in this story that doesn’t stop. Another episode of Josh Hartnett as a contract hit man who mulls over the beauty and value of certain women before he kills them for his employers. Clive Owen goes on a murderous rampage to protect a town of prostitutes who are themselves murderous rampagers. But it’s all supposed to be moral because after all, it’s women beaters, women murderers and women haters who are getting their comeuppance. Bruce Willis is a cop, who is the closest thing to a good guy in this movie, but even he is a cynical nihilist just like everyone else. And his revenge on bludgeoning a yellow criminal monstrosity is supposed to be okay as well because it is in the defense of a little girl who was going to be raped and murdered by the “yellow bastard” as he is called. So this depraved little series of tales is diabolically genius because it cloaks its nihilistic evolutionary survival of the fittest worldview in a pseudo-moral context. It makes the villains all woman haters and woman abusers so extreme that the moral protective sense in all of us wants to see them pay for their evil. But the problem is, it is all entirely violent vigilante revenge outside the law. It is a nihilistic world of the flesh without grace anywhere. Even all the religious characters are frauds (A corrupt priest and a cannibalistic cardinal). There is no hope outside of sheer brutal violence driven by hatred. Now, I would not say that I do not want all these evil men to die. I do. In fact, I know some people whose young girl was killed by a serial killer, and I can tell you that the God of the Universe gave lex talionis (“eye for an eye”) for a good and just reason. Because rape and murder and certain other crimes can only be justly paid with by another life. BUT that God also dictates that it must only be accomplished through due process, through the law, NOT through vigilanteism (Romans 12:19-13:4). God says that the state is God’s avenger, not individuals. If you want a more in depth examination of this concept, see my article, A Time For Revenge? Vigilanteism and Movie Justice in A Time to Kill. The difference between this movie and a moral movie about revenge, like Man on Fire, is that Man on Fire acknowledges that inner lust for personal revenge that we all have for the wicked of this world, but concludes that it does not accomplish true justice. It begins with vengeance, but ends with grace. Man on Fire illustrates atonement and grace from God found in the midst of this dark world. Sin City exploits an inner sense of justice against evil into a rationalization for unjust violence. It is a religion of carnage, where personal revenge, not grace or justice is what accomplishes redemption. Sure, there’s concern for girls and woman in this movie, sure there’s self-sacrifice and even substitutionary atonement (one dies that another may live) and protective instincts for the “innocent.” But there is no transcendent context for these values. They take place in a Godless universe of nihilistic meaninglessness, of kill or be killed ultimacy. At best, this is an example where, as Francis Schaeffer would say, the unbelieving artist cannot escape God’s image in himself. These reflections of redemption are echos of the conscience in the writer, that bleed out, regardless of how hopelessly lost he is. Even the depraved lovers of violence know the universal need for redemption. But I would say that the dominant ethic of this movie is ultimately: kill or be killed.
Romans 12:17 Never pay back evil for evil to anyone. Respect what is right in the sight of all men. 18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men. 19 Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 “But if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him a drink; for in so doing you will heap burning coals upon his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. 13:1 Let every person be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. 2 Therefore he who resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same; 4 for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.
p.s. Oh, and by the way, I never thought I would see a movie that had more useless voice-over narration than Million Dollar Baby, but Sin City beats it hands down. I realize that was part of the translation of the graphic novel, which relies heavily upon thought bubbles and narration, but it only works half the time. The other half, it’s just telling us what we are seeing the character do anyway. I love voice-over narration, but this is the kind of movie that gives it a bad reputation.
Constantine
Recommended with qualifications. Constantine is a mixed bag of good and bad theology with high production values, proving once again that secular movie makers make movies about Christian concepts better than Christians do. But everyone suffers because of it. This is basically a secular interpretation of spiritual warfare that a movie of Frank Peretti’s novel, This Present Darkness should have been. But this is a topic I am sore about, because it seems that the world does better movies about Christian themes than Christians do. Okay, The Omen or Left Behind? Which is better, Hmmmm? I wonder. By the way, The Omen still stands strong as a movie 30 years later. Scary as hell. I don’t even agree with its theology but I still think it’s the best Antichrist movie ever. (That is, until they make Hank Hannegraaf’s book The Last Disciple into an epic). The Exorcist or Raging Angels? Heck, even the Seventh Sign was better than the slew of Christian end times movies, and that was a pretty bad movie. I wrote a review of Constantine for Christian Research Journal, so I have to write something different here. Okay, so Constantine is an exorcist who has a special talent of seeing the spiritual world. He committed suicide in the past, but came back to life, so he is condemned to hell by Roman Catholic theology for a mortal sin. Therefore he seeks to work his way back to heaven by casting demons out of people and sending them to hell, thinking that his good deeds will outweigh his bad. Okay, here are the good things I liked about the movie: 1) you have to realize that in our postmodern society that denies evil as a cultural construct, a movie about good angels and evil demons battling over souls of men, with a REAL hell where people suffer for their sins, is A GOOD BEGINNING. No, an excellent beginning. After all, in our world, there is a growing number of people who actually believe that one God’s “terrorist” is another Satan’s “freedom fighter,” as if Satan has a legitimate perspective. As if evil is relative. Well, this movie dispels that ignorance pretty well and I like it for that. 2) It shows angels, not just demons, 3) it communicates a rudimentary notion of salvation through faith when Gabriel tells Constantine that he can’t earn his way to heaven because of the sin he’s committed. That’s a powerful truth that is certainly politically incorrect to communicate. Constantine begins the story with a grudge against God, and he thinks God is a “kid who’s not planning anything,” but ends up asking God for a little help at the climax and concludes that God does have “a plan for all of us.” Before I talk about what I didn’t like, I want to establish that a movie DOES NOT HAVE TO be theologically correct to be a legitimate story. Much like Jesus’ parables, the important point is the overall worldview or overall theme of the movie. I have a movie coming out about demon possession (The Visitation) that takes creative liberties with the concept of demon possession and healing. But the whole point of the story is how people can be religious and miss the truth if they don’t have it right to begin with. But having said that, I still must give my complaints of elements that bugged me about Constantine: 1) The entire scenario of the movie is based on a Dualistic worldview where God and the devil make a bet to win the souls of men, but only through influence, not direct contact. It makes them look more like equal powers fighting “to see who would win.” Constantine is an Arminian Free Will nightmare of dualism where God and the devil are near equal beings of power…” Think about it, If our salvation is all up to our will and God can’t change our hearts he can only persuade us—as the Arminian believes—then God really is no stronger than Satan in the battle for men. Satan really does have a chance to win if he can convince more men to his side. In this view, God is thought of as the most powerful being in the universe, but not truly all-powerful. And technically, he isn’t even the most powerful. Man’s will is the most powerful being in the universe and gosh, I sure hope God is good enough to convince man. You get the point. This is on the level of the light and dark sides of the Force baloney. Some may point to Job as an example of the wager, but that is a specific instance of one man’s life and God is always in control the entire time, which he makes very clear in the final chapters: “Job 42:2 “I know that You can do all things, And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” In Constantine, it is the ultimate picture of the universe, a worldview. But if one looks at the Bible, there may be a bet in Job, but the whole story has already been written from beginning to end, or Genesis to Revelation, and God’s battles with Satan are predestined to failure for Satan. So, yes, there is struggle in Biblical spiritual warfare, but from God’s perspective, he is still in control of every thing that happens and has it all planned out. 2) Another thing is that they set up the “Spear of Destiny” that pierced Christ’s side as the McGuffin that the demons are trying to get a hold of. They say that Christ didn’t die on the cross, the spear killed him, so whoever has the spear will rule the world. Well, GOD SAYS that Jesus gave up his spirit and the spear merely proved he was already dead by illustrating the division of his blood and water flowing from his side. This is a typical occult Gnostic view that uses talismans as objects of power in the spirit world. I’m not against using these as cinematic symbols of spiritual powers all together, but it’s just the whole context makes it seem that even GOD can’t stop them. I am reminded of the famous line in Raiders of the Lost Ark where they say that whoever has the ark is unstoppable, as if God can’t even do so. But when they open the Ark, God does kill them cause they did not anticipate God’s power. 3) Another thing, Even though hell is real in this story, the depiction of demons ruling over hell is more like a Roman Catholic medieval picture out of Dante than the Bible. The Bible says that the devil and his angels will THEMSELVES be tormented forever in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10). So, hell is not a party or realm of power for demons, it is a place of punishment for them as well as humans. 4) Also, the goal of the demons is to bring forth the “Son of the devil” by human birth, in the same was as Jesus was the “Son of God.” Well, this is a common movie convention, but it is terribly unbiblical. There is not a single Scripture that indicates Satan can have the same kind of incarnation that God had. Here is another of my censored sentences from the Journal article: “This may fit the fanciful theology of Left-Behinders whose blessed hope is the coming of an incarnate “Antichrist,” but it has no place in a biblical theology of incarnation.” 5) There is a voodoo witchdoctor who is portrayed as “neutral” in this battle between God and Satan. Which is a joke, because God says that witchcraft is detestable in his sight and that there is no neutrality, you are either for Him or against Him (Deut. 18:9-14, Matt 12:30). Neutrality is, as they say, a lie of the devil. Ain’t no purgatory, folks. And there ain’t no sin, like Constantine’s suicide for instance, that cannot be forgiven. 6) An interesting thing that they had in the movie was that they used the term, “half-breeds” of angels or demons who were suspended between heaven and hell or something like that. Well, that seemed to me to be a pretty racist language in today’s politically correct fascist fashion. But all in all, considering our anti-supernatural Darwinian society, I consider the spiritual breakthrough of Constantine more good than bad, and quite frankly, I’m glad Christians didn’t make it cause they probably would have screwed up even worse. (Unless it were me, of course ☺)
Assault on Precinct 13
Not really Recommended. The story of a group of bad cops assaulting an old police precinct in order to kill a criminal housed inside who will testify against the dirty cops. Pretty straightforward predictable action movie. The hero, played by Ethan Hawke, is a burned out ex-Narcotics undercover who blames himself for his partners being killed in a sting operation. So it has the standard cop action film storyline of redemption. He must overcome his self-blame and withdrawn inactivity in life. If he doesn’t, he will be killed by the bad guys. So “action” is not merely a reference to guns and fights, but a metaphor for salvation. We must act in order to find life. Sitting around and contemplating is not living. In this sense, action movies tend to be Existentialist. Not entirely false. But these kind of movies are tough to make hard line recommendations on. On the one hand, I heartily affirm movies that reinforce that we must fight against evil, even to the point of killing in self defense. This is a good countercultural value to our culturewide appeasement of evil. If we just give evil men what they want, they will leave us alone. Sound familiar? There’s even an old cop who says that line, thus reinforcing those who treasure life more than justice. This is all good stuff. I love how the hero is a man attempting to be righteous, to do what it right. Ethan won’t release the criminal to save his own skin. He has a commitment to the law and he will do his job. These kind of things are great moral worldview elements. The problem is that sometimes these kind of movies can degenerate into Darwinian survival of the fittest contests. For instance, where kindness and wits do not necessarily win, but brute force and cleverness does. In this case, there are a bit too much brutality which can tend to overshadow the righteousness aspect. There are a bit too many close ups of people with bullet holes through their heads. In fact, I think there were about 7 or 8. The love interest of the hero is killed near the end, which was a real unpredictable shocker in terms of the genre (You just don’t kill the love interest), but I think it lended toward a more nihilistic Darwinian worldview. And they go out of their way to keep the camera on her face with the bullet hole through it, way too long. This was particularly pessimistic. It was like saying, this is the end of Love: Death. Period. All your hopes for love as the resolution of this story are despair. The Criminal, played by Laurence Fishburne says in a church that he doesn’t believe in God because of the evil in the world, another atheistic evolutionary argument for the “war of all against all.” The Criminal emphasizes several times that he is helping the hero fight the bad guys only because it is in his self interest for self-preservation to do so. Ethan lets the criminals loose to help fight against the crooked cops attacking them. A sort of evolutionary cooperation to survive. Of course, the criminal should think this way, cause that is what he is. But he stresses at the end that he let’s the cop live only out of thanks for saving his life. But if he tries to stop him, he will kill him. Again, consistent in one sense, but the stress on it in the story seemed to me to be too much. It tended to reinforce that Darwinian survival determines this ending, not righteousness. This movie was just a little too much survival of the fittest and too little righteousness for me to really recommend.
Flight of the Phoenix
Recommended. Great popcorn adventure movie. Actually, a survival adventure movie about a group of people trying to get out of the Gobi desert by rebuilding a small plane out of the parts of the plane they crashed in. I really enjoy Dennis Quaid. He is an underestimated actor. And the story really kept me interested. The writers, Scott Frank and Edward Burns, even put a heart and worldview into it. Unfortunately, the worldview is rather humanistic and empty. Once again, a story about life and death where God is virtually ignored, except to criticize him. A guy sees another guy praying over his ration of peaches and says, “I’m amazed that during these dire times, you thank God for anything.” He then tells a little joke about a boxer crossing himself before fighting and someone asks what it means, and another says, “Not a damn thing if the man can’t fight.” Well, yes, this is another humanistic interpretation that tries to reinforce the fact that if we survive it is because of our own ingenuity because God is irrelevant. Man will fly himself out of his problem. Then later, that joke teller answers someone regarding his “belief” in getting out of the desert. He says he believes in spirituality not religion. “Religion divides people. Belief in something unites.” Well, duh. What do you think religion is? IT’S A UNITY BASED ON BELIEF. The storytellers here clearly show their philosophical ignorance and religious bigotry. It is not religion that is the problem it is man’s inherently selfish nature that turns all beliefs into division rather than uniting. Of course, it’s TRUTH that ultimately divides anyway. Those who do not have the truth or want it accuse those who do of division, when in fact, it is the rejecter of truth who is the divider. But that aside, you know this is the writer’s own viewpoint because he provides no retort in the mouth of the believer. Believe me, I can think of a hundred great responses. So, that means the writer wants that view to prevail or have the upper hand cause it has the “last word.” Unless of course, the director changed the original script by cutting out a good response in the editing. That is entirely possible. There is another “thematic” moment where a character spells out the theme: “Man only needs one thing in life: Someone to love. And if you can’t give him that, give him something to hope for. And if you can’t give him that, just give him something to do.” In this sense, hope or meaning is constructed by the individual in a meaningless universe where our value comes from choice. A touch of Existentialism. As Sartre would say, “to do is to be.” Also a typical Romantic idea that in the absence of God, “love” between two humans is all there is. Well, Ironically, later on, when the hero tries to validate his reason to go on when there is no hope because “We’re not garbage. We’re people. We’ve got families, lives to live.” But of course, if there is no God, then all that meaning is self-delusion. There simply is no difference between garbage and people. We’re all made from the same molecules. There was a great opportunity in the Giovani Ribisi character, who was a great character as the annoying know-it-all, whose knowledge saves them all because he builds planes. There is a time when his arrogance reaches a truly repulsive level when he says that everyone else but him is dispensable. In other words, the typical humanist notion that knowledge is salvation. I think that this was a wasted set up because they never conclude with this character fault. They never really shame this part of him. They could have shown how knowledge alone does not save, but so does character and sacrifice. Like maybe a character could have saved Ribisi by sacrificing himself and that would be a point in the story that, No, the only reason Ribisi is alive is because of the goodness of another or something like that. My point is not to rewrite the story but simply show that a better worldview could have made this story more satisfying for me. But it’s still a good adventure movie anyway. There is some humbling and self sacrifice, it’s just never tied in with the theme like it should have been. Alas, you can’t expect much character or value from humanists with no understanding of transcendence.
National Treasure
Not Recommended. This is a boring predictable action movie. Yeah, it has a good moral: Great riches are not for one man to hoard but for sharing with the world. The hero seeks treasure but ends up giving it to the world. That’s cool. But everything else is pretty boring. I’m all for a good popcorn movie, but I like to have a secondary level that is deeper to it all. This one tries to be in that it is linked to the founding of our country, but it doesn’t work for me. One complaint: They pitch a pragmatic morality and try to link it to the founding fathers. The hero says that the founders were guilty of treason, so their founding of the country was doing wrong in order to bring about right, thus justifying his own stealing of the Declaration of Independence in order to save it. Well, sorry, but the founders were not traitors. It was a war for independence of lesser magistrates against unjust higher magistrates, it was not a revolution in the strict sense of the word. They had every moral right to withdraw from Britain, because they did it through lower magistrates, NOT through a mere populist uprising, in other words, a mob, like the French Revolution. THAT was illegal, immoral, and criminal. But the American War of Independence was both moral and legal. And these pragmatism arguments always sound good until you examine it more closely. Oh, so it’s okay to do wrong in order to accomplish right? So the ends justify the mans? Okay, then killing all poor people to get rid of poverty is justifiable on this ethic. And none of us would accept that option. Well, that’s what ends justifying the means DOES lead to. Justification of crime in the name of ultimate goodness. Pragmatic morality is criminal ethics. To be fair, the hero was in other ways, a good guy who didn’t seek to win through violence, but through his wits, and that’s good.
Alexander
Not Recommended at all. BORING. A movie about Alexander the Great done by Oliver the Amateur. I don’t get it. I don’t understand how studio execs just keep giving away tons of money to this guy who makes terrible movies that don’t make money. I am personally offended by Stone’s arrogant selfishness that actually thinks he deserves three hours for all his movies when they barely deserve one hour fifty minutes. He reminds me of Scorsese. These guys are the kings of terrible epics and colossal wastes of money. Everything is too long from the very start of the boringly drawn out title sequence in the beginning, followed by a long boring droning and redundant monologue by Anthony Hopkins as Ptolemy, Then followed by long boring battle sequences that are attempted to be salvaged by giving it a Lord of the Rings rip off soundtrack. We see a long boring inspirational speech by Alexander to his troops when facing King Darius. This is so boring, even to Stone himself, that he fades out of it and onto a flying eagle, and then fades back into the boring speech being boringly concluded. Well, I’ve got to say, Stone didn’t have a conspiracy here, so that’s new, I guess. Not only is it way too long and boring, but you just don’t care for any of the characters, including Alexander himself. Look, let’s face it, all these lines about undying eternal love and devotion just don’t ring with truth at all in the mouths of Mr. multisexual Alex and his sex buddy. Try as hard as he may, it’s inherently fallacious. Most people just won’t buy it. (There is a reference to Achilles and Patroclus 6 times). And besides, what’s so heroic about this genocidal murdering bloody warrior, who invaded other countries, not even for gold or wealth, (which is supposed to be some kind of virtue to the Stone) but simply to conquer and be king of all. Yeah, that’s a real hero. What a great guy for trying to unify the whole world — UNDER HIS THUMB. So Communist Stone complains and criticizes George Bush, but then makes a movie glorifying the very kind of conquering and subduing that he claims Bush is engaged in. Go figure. Of course, Stone tries to smooth it over by making Alexander a P.C. modernist. He’s for the gay marriage laws, (“there are other ways of loving”), and he is Mr. Multiculturalist. In a world of racist nationalists, he believes in interracial dating and even interracial marriage. Okay, his multiculturalism lies in believing all the peoples and nations HE IS CONQUERING are equal in worth and value. “None of these poor suckers we are killing and subjugating and enslaving are inferior to us Greeks (like all those snobbish Macedonian advisors of his believe).” He actually says he is “freeing all peoples” to be under his rule. Wait a minute. Does anybody else see the obvious absurdity here, or am I just crazy? Freeing people by conquering and killing them? Let’s call him Alexander the Marauding Multiculturalist. Well, they got one thing right, multiculturalism’s kinship with Fascism. So Alexander is this “great” leader who is basically a man of action. This is another existential movie that scorns “those who think too much” and trumpets at the very beginning a quote from Virgil: “Fortune favors the bold.” Alexander spouts platitudes, half of which I couldn’t even hear in the midst of a noisey audio mix. “Fear of death is the cause of all our misfortunes.” “Conquer your fear, and I promise you, you will conquer death.” “We’ve all suffered. In the end, all that matters is what you’ve done.” So we are the sum total of our choices or actions. Action is elevated in this amoral universe, that again, Stone would attack if it was a person on the opposite side of his political beliefs doing all the “bold action.” You get it? These kind of filmmakers think they are being profound by exalting “action” without morality, and then cry like clubbed baby seals when a man of action does WHAT THEY DON’T LIKE. That’s called hypocrisy, self-deception. I mean, just apply this existential amoral “bold action” to Stone’s boogeyman, Bush again. Hey, Bush is bold and a man of action in invading Iraq. So I guess Oliver Stone must have voted for Bush. Not that I agree with Bush, but I know Stone has expressed his hate speech against him. Send out the word: Oliver Stone supports Bush’s bold invasion of Iraq. An odd moment that totally said, “Editing nightmare” occurred after we see this big battle with Babylon and then we see King Darius flee the battle. And then we cut to Alexander weeping over a soldier who died, looking very regretful and like a loser. Then we hear Ptolemy’s narration telling us Darius was defeated and Alexander won. What? What kind of a non-sequitur was that? And an anti-climactic one at that. This movie was so boring, that you would not miss a thing by not seeing it. The court intrigue was boring, just a bunch of people trying to speak with subtext that you don’t even care about, and the long boring war councils talking about stuff that simply wasn’t interesting, and of course, Ptolemy’s long boring narration throughout and over the transition periods. Who cares. I’ll take the pagan Gladiator any day over this broing drivel.