Religious movies are known to be awful, at least by the critics and us movie buffs. The religious people love them, they just love the message within the film. Now, I'm not making fun of religious people, in fact, I'm a Christian, but I still hate those movies. I'm talking about films like God's Not Dead, War Room, and such. Those movies are so terrible, but why do they love them so damn much? Well, they go into the movies expecting a sermon, they go into the movie expecting a good message. I'm not saying that's bad, but there is a place to go for such things. If you want a sermon go to church! These are not movies they're sermons, I don't want to watch a sermon in the form of a movie! These movies make us Christian's look like fools because the movies are so bad. If I went into War Room expecting a good sermon then I'll come out happy, but if I go in expecting to watch a good movie (which is what everyone going into a movie theater wants) then I'll be bored as hell. In fact I'll get angry because everyone behind this movie is trying to convert you, they're trying to make you believe what they believe. They are cramming their teachings down our throats!
Now, I did't write this article to make fun of those movies (even though they are pretty awful) I wrote this because I want those filmmakers too stop. I want them to make a good movie about faith and Jesus. I just recently watched Martin Scorsese's Silence which is clearly about Christianity, faith, and Jesus. It has highly religious themes, but why would I love Silence, yet hate War Room. Well, Silence is a movie and not a sermon. Yes, the characters believe in God and stuff, but that's it, it's what they believe and how strong they are in the faith. Scorsese has no interest in converting anyone he's jut trying to make a good movie about priests that are trying to hold onto their faith when they're being beaten, tortured and when they're seeing kind people be killed because of them. War Room was just cramming it's message down your mouth, it was trying to convert you and I hate it when films do that.
Finally, I want to talk about Bible movies, movies that are based off of stories from the epic book. I believe there are plenty of good Bible films/TV series, such as Darren Aronofsky's Noah. Noah is an epic movie, it's a visually stunning movie, and it's a very dark movie. I believe it is a great movie because of it's good character development, great performances, amazing visuals, and jaw-dropping fight sequences. Yes, there's only one huge battle, but there are a few small fights throughout the film. Noah is a film that doesn't cram it's message down your throat, in fact the message is touched on only a few times and I really appreciated that. Christians were pissed when they saw this movie though, and why's that? Well, because it wasn't even close to the Bible story, it took the short story and made a big spectacle out of it. They hated it because of that and because the message was hardly touched on. They think the character of Noah was destroyed and just couldn't stand the amount of violence. I highly recommend this movie, I think it deserves more praise because it's truly an amazing film.
I want to take a brief moment to talk about Mel Gibson's epic, The Passion of the Christ. I don't like this one as much as Noah, but I still think it's a good film. The message was touched on a lot, and I think it started to get thrown in my face in a few scenes. The movie is long and disturbing, but it is good. Christians loved this one because it was centered around Jesus, it was realistic, the character wasn't ruined like in Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ which totally ruined Jesus. There was a message present and it was actually good. The film didn't hit with critics though because they thought it was to preachy, and I know how much they hate preachy movies such as God's Not Dead. I don't think The Passion of the Christ is to preachy though and I think it's a pretty good movie.
The last Bible movie I want to talk about is Ridley Scott's Exodus: Gods and Kings, now this film didn't hit with critics or Christians. The critics thought it was prolonged, boring, and they thought the casting choices were off (which they were). Christians hated it because it ruined Moses' character, it had no message, and it wasn't close to the Bible story. Now, I'm not a big fan of this movie either, but I don't think it should have been hated as much as it did. The visuals and cinematography were amazing, the battle sequences were epic, and the characters were well developed. The movie is slow though and it does get pretty boring, it was a lot different than the Bible, which I don't mind, but there were a few scenes where I thought the film could have been been better if it stayed close to the story. Overall, I enjoyed the movie, but I don't recommend it.
Well, that's all I have to say about that. I'm not a big fan of religious movies, but I do believe they can be good. Movies can have strong themes of religion like a lot of Scorsese's films and still be good. Bible movies can be epic and amazing, but it's nearly impossible to please both fans and critics with a Bible movie. Hollywood needs a man that understands the Bible, but also understands film to make a Bible movie. I think Scorsese could make a great Bible movie, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. I know I'd love to make one, but I'm just dreaming here.
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