As the summer movie season winds down, box office totals are dropping, as is the quality of films. New releases The Replacements, Autumn in New York, and Bless the Child all received tepid notices, although the spiritual content of the supernatural thriller Bless the Child made for a lively discussion about the growing respect for God in the unfortunately schlocky genre.
What’s Hot
Hollow Man took the box office crown for the second week in a row, despite piles of bad reviews. Several new Christian reviews stacked the pile higher, including a particularly forceful one from J. Robert Parks of The Phantom Tollbooth, who says it’s “so overwhelmed by stupidity and depravity as to be practically unwatchable. … Instead of exploring extremely pertinent issues like the transformation of the body and its effect on human identity … it’s merely an excuse to indulge [an] obsession with human dismemberment. … The lowlight comes when [the invisible man] sucks on a woman’s breast while she’s asleep. It makes for an interesting special effect, and it feels like you’re watching a rape.” Holly McClure of Crosswalk.com agrees that “this is a dark, adult horror film that even some adults may not be comfortable with. … The script, plot and annoying behavior of Kevin Bacon ruin what could have been an interesting story.” Movieguide‘s pan of the film, though, notes a somewhat atoning “warning about the dangers of playing God and having too much power.”
Nearly every Christian critic gives a mild thumbs up to Space Cowboys, yet the areas singled out for praise are often completely opposite. For instance, World magazine was bored by the long setup as four old-timers brave the rigors of NASA training before leaving earth, and says “once the movie shoots into space, it starts getting interesting.” The Phantom Tollbooth‘s J. Robert Parks, though, says “once the movie gets into space, it loses a considerable part of its charm. … In the midst of disaster and special effects, the camaraderie that existed on firmer soil is lost.” Similarly, Parks says he “didn’t believe [James] Garner as a Baptist minister for a second,” while ChristianWeek enjoyed the efforts of the film to “show Christians in a positive light. … Believers on the big screen may still be cartoonish, but now they’re our cartoons.” ChristianWeek complained that the film was “not that exciting,” though—differing from Movieguide‘s assessment that “Space Cowboys is another entertaining, fairly exciting movie from Clint Eastwood.”
The Replacements is a football comedy inspired by the 1987 NFL strike, which finds a group of misfit second-rate players learning to work together as a team, á la Major League. The U.S. Catholic Conference calls it a “surprisingly winsome comedy [that] remains appealing despite a predictable story line, time-worn cliches and stereotypical characters.” Preview‘s Mary Draughon agreed that it “will tickle the funny bone of many wannabe players and fans,” but warned that the movie should have been rated R (instead of PG-13) because of a group of “exotic dancers, recruited as replacement cheerleaders, performing suggestive dances in revealing costumes.” Holly McClure of Crosswalk.com also objected to the sideline antics. “The movie ends up being Hoosiers with Hooters and it ruined it for me. … How unfortunate that the final message in this movie is a group of loser has-been men can overcome insurmountable odds … but the most that the women in this movie achieve is selling their bodies to men.” Other critics had different ideas of the movie’s final message. World magazine upholds the idea “that greatness can still be earned even when recognition and glory are absent.” Michael Elliott of Crosswalk.com draws a more dubious conclusion that “the contrast between [the replacement quarterback], who cares about his teammates, and the character of the striking star quarterback, who cares only about his bank balance, is … a good example of what truly drives success.” The actual world of sports says otherwise, though; championship games are rarely played between the two most selfless teams in the league. Movieguide asserts that “the deepest of [its] messages is the idea that ‘Glory lasts forever.'” Again, the sports world says otherwise; how many replacement players from 13 years ago can you name?
The new romance Autumn in New York earned mild appreciation for its depiction of a womanizer (Richard Gere) trying to reform when he meets the right woman (Winona Ryder), but most critics found it dull nevertheless. “Paint-by-number seduction scenes, sex scenes, argument scenes and walk-in-the-park scenes inevitably leave viewers drowsy,” says Steven Isaac of Focus on the Family. “[Gere’s character] goes through the fires of personal turmoil and finally turns his life around. That’s great. But after sitting through 105 minutes of Autumn in New York, you just can’t help but think, ‘So what?’ There’s no conviction in the lessons. There’s no passion in the telling.” Crosswalk.com‘s Michael Elliott also characterizes it as “a passionless romantic drama which, while cosmetically attractive, has no soul to sustain it.
… [It’s] Love Story in need of a stronger love or a better story.” The U.S. Catholic Conference gripes that the “performances are hammy and the corny plot is predictable, leaving swell shots of fall in the Big Apple as the sole attraction.” The Dove Foundation‘s Phil Boatwright, however, went against the grain and opposed his colleagues on all counts. “This film says what’s important is finding a soul mate, despite the differences. Romantically photographed, with a beautiful soulful look, the film engages with its textured performances by the leads. … A tearjerker of the first order, I haven’t heard so many sniffles in a theater since Love Story.“
What’s New
Bless the Child, the latest movie in the wave of supernatural thrillers like The Ninth Gate, End of Days, and Stigmata, earned kudos from Christian critics for empowering the forces of heaven, which in the other films remained vague or passive.
Focus on the Family‘s Bob Smithouser says “it’s refreshing to find an entry in this genre that has such deep respect for the God of the Bible. I … was pleasantly surprised to see orthodox Christianity elevated to a gutsy, virile, victorious role … hardly the impotent faith usually seen on the big screen.” Michael Elliott of Crosswalk.com agrees that it’s “a unique film. A secular movie that does not shy away from incorporating the power of God into its narrative does not come along every day.” The downside to such explicit spiritual confrontation, Elliott says, is that “by vividly depicting the evil and depravity of the devil spirit world, the filmmakers may alienate a large section of the Christian audience who choose not to subject themselves to such fare.” Some critics encouraged readers to brave the violence if they consider themselves able to handle it. “The strong message in the film should encourage more mature Christians and offer opportunities for discussion,” says Paul Bicking of Preview, and Movieguide writes that “Bless the Child has brought Christian allegory to the big screen and deserves the enthusiastic support of the Christian community.” Other Christian reviewers, like Elliott predicted, felt alienated by the theology and violence. “Though I am by no means an expert in the Scriptures,” says Childcare Action‘s Thomas A. Carder, “even I felt misled by teasings with righteous accurate portrayal of parts of the New Testament mixed intricately and skillfully with counterfeitings of the Scriptures.” The Dove Foundation, too, bristles at Hollywood’s “cockamamie storylines that confuse and mislead. … Any affirmative message gets lost in this film’s maze of grisly supernatural special effects and its convoluted, downright silly story.” Mainstream reviews (which were nearly unanimously negative) echoed Dove’s lament. “Everything remotely interesting in this movie is overwhelmed by plot silliness and Basinger’s terrible central performance,” writes Dave Forsmark of The Flint Journal. “It’s all just cheap metaphor and stupid spectacle,” says Gemma Files of Film.com, “with technology standing (rather inadequately) in for any sort of genuine inquiry into the fascinating mysteries and difficulties of actual faith.” Christian critic Peter T. Chattaway of B.C. Christian News agrees that despite “remarkably good intentions,” Bless the Child is too “poorly written, poorly acted and poorly directed” to explore real spiritual dilemmas. “Evil in this film is anything but subtle; there is no recognition that it sometimes takes very attractive (or, alternatively, very ordinary) forms.”
What’s Noteworthy
Just as some mainstream critics are becoming attuned to spiritual issues in movies, some are also reflecting Christians’ discomfort with the amount of raunch in today’s movies. The August 11 cover story of Entertainment Weekly, an essay by staff writer Lisa Schwarzbaum, argues that audience permissiveness is making pop culture degenerate. “This taboo against taboos amuses us in the short run but deadens us in the long. So eager are we not to be the kind of rubes unsettled by provocateurs like Lenny Bruce or Richard Pryor, so indulgent are we, in this peaceful, prosperous new century, of anything that at least doesn’t bore us, that we’re unnecessarily tolerant of raunch. The notion of indecency has become obsolete. … Commerce being commerce, pretty soon we may not be able to distinguish between the bestial and the best-selling.” An opposing viewpoint worth noting comes from Tom Fontana, creator of the violent HBO prison drama Oz. He argues that the permissiveness that breeds raunch is the very quality that allows for the industry’s recent focus on spirituality. Schwarzbaum quotes him as saying, “Just as you can have more Christian-oriented programs, you can also have something that’s got more rawness to it, because there are places for both of those things. … I think, as a country, it’s not like we’re spiraling downward so much as it is we’re being more honest with ourselves.” In other words, maybe a Big Kahuna can’t exist without a Scary Movie.
Steve Lansingh is editor ofthefilmforum.com, a weekly Internet magazine devoted to Christianity and the cinema.
See earlier Film Forum postings for these other movies in the box-office top ten: Nutty Professor II: The Klumps, What Lies Beneath, Coyote Ugly, X-Men, and The Perfect Storm.
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