Battleship

Considering that this movie is inspired by the board game of the same name, it’s not half bad!  It’s a summer action flick, entertaining but predictable and not very deep, exactly as advertised.  It’s fun to watch and there were actually a couple of great lesson moments in between the gunfire and explosions.

The story centers around Alex Hopper, (Taylor Kitsch), an impulsive and immature individual who doesn’t seem interested in putting his considerable skills to good use.  We are introduced to a drunken Alex getting in trouble with the law over shenanigans involving a chicken burrito, after which his brother (Commander Stone Hopper, played by Alexander Skarsgård) insists that Alex join the navy and straighten out his life.

The relationship between the Hopper brothers is truly loving, in that Stone recognizes that the best thing for Alex is not always what the younger brother wants.  When Alex gets into trouble and comes to his brother hoping to escape the consequences, saying, “You’ve gotta make some calls,” Stone replies, “Who do I call to teach you humility?  I’m sorry, man, I just don’t have that number.”

Alex’s commanding officer, Admiral Shane, (played by Liam Neeson), is equally blunt in his assessment of the brash young lieutenant, telling him, “You’re a very smart individual, with a very weak character and poor decision-making skills.”  I love the inclusion of these lines of dialogue, because while we often see movies with “heroes” that are similarly immature, their reckless and selfish actions are sometimes celebrated or downplayed.  It’s nice to see Alex’s character accurately distilled within the film itself.

**SPOILER ALERT** At the end of the film Alex, having helped averted potential global catastrophe, feels entitled to a blessing from the Admiral to marry his daughter.  To my delight, the response is, “No…Saving the world is one thing, Hopper.  My daughter is quite another.”  This is terrific, because Alex didn’t really demonstrate much change in his major character flaws throughout the drama.  He learned to be less selfish and rely more on teamwork, and he used creative tactical strategies, but he didn’t act less brashly or control his temper.  At one point he had to be reminded three times by inferior officers that there were sailors in the water and the ship’s duty was to prioritize rescuing them rather than pursuing a vengeful and reckless enemy attack.

The Admiral’s response to Alex’s assumption of deserved respect because he “saved the world” reminded me of Galatians 6:3, which says

If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself.

As well as 1 Samuel 16:7, when God sends Samuel to anoint a new king and the prophet assumes it should be one of David’s older, brawnier brothers, but God says,

The LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.

I don’t think that the character of Alex is completely without good inner qualities, but I think God would agree with the Admiral’s viewpoint that acts of bravery and heroism are not a substitute for character and integrity.  And, the Admiral does invite Alex to join him for lunch, and it’s implied that he will agree to let him marry his daughter.  But not because he “saved the world,” and not without some scrutiny.  **END SPOILER**

Rihanna made her acting debut in this movie as a soldier who fired a lot of guns. I thought her performance was, meh, okay, one of my least favorite things about the movie. Just because it was distracting to keep seeing Rihanna swagger around trying to act tough.

This film also features several characters who are veterans, one of who has lost limbs and is struggling to regain a sense of purpose, and others who were actual navy veterans, as this quote from an interview with Skarsgård highlights:

Several Navy veterans are also featured as extras in the film. At the “Battleship” premiere, Skarsgard said, “Those veterans that are on the ship that my character referred to they’re real vets and they served on the [USS] Missouri.”

“Some of them going back to the second World War and it’s just a very humbling experience to be there with them on that ship,” he added. “The stories those guys told us were just amazing and I’ll never forget it.” (source)

All of these veterans, as well as the diverse personalities on the ships, end up having to work together, and their success demonstrates the truth of 1 Corinthians 12:21-22 on how there are no non-essential parts to the body of Christ.

Another time, (perhaps on my pagelady blog), I would like to discuss the treatment of the aliens in this film, because I found it strange that not a single character seemed to question whether or not the right course of action was to automatically try to destroy them all rather than attempt diplomacy or reconciliation, but on the whole I would say that this film, though little more than mindless action, had pleasantly surprising, mostly positive messages.

Immortals

“All men’s souls are immortal, but the souls of the righteous are immortal and divine.”

This quote, attributed to Socrates, appears in the opening sequence of director Tareq Singh’s sword-and-sandal, man-and-mortal elevated fantasy film, Immortals.  The quote is a bit like the overall tone of the film: interesting, explicitly theological, somewhat true but not exactly scriptural.  Marketed as being “from the same producers as 300,” it features incredible visuals, (including over-the-top violence similar to the aforementioned Spartan epic,) but a weak storyline.  (I would rank it below 300, but above last year’s Clash of the Titans.)  Despite a plot that is at times scattered and in-cohesive, and a setting that is more anachronistic than mythologicaly accurate, Immortals provides some excellent depictions of spiritual truths, and some very inspiring moments of demonstrated faithfulness.  Overall I found this movie to be very thought-provoking, and I liked it.

The plot follows a man named Theseus, (Henry Cavill), favored by the gods to be their (and the human Hellenics’) hero in the fight against villainous King Hyperion, (Mickey Rourke), who is bent on causing destruction and chaos by unleashing the gods’ adversaries, the Titans.  (They were imprisoned for eons by Zeus and his pantheon after losing a cosmic war).   Just how or why Theseus can be useful or necessary isn’t really made clear, but Zeus says it is because the man “does not know danger, fear, defeat, or ridicule.”

The gods of Olympus watch the affairs on earth with concern.

The gods are obviously concerned with the affairs of mankind, (although it’s unclear whether they would care as much if the stakes didn’t directly threaten their position.)  But according to Zeus, there is a “law” restricting the interaction of gods and men.  “None of the mortals on earth should witness us in our immortal form,” he says at one point, and at another he commands that “no god shall interfere in the affairs of man, unless the Titans are unleashed.  If we expect man to have faith in us, then we must have faith in him.  We must allow him to use his own free will.”

Zeus in his mortal disguise (left, John Hurt) and his natural immortal appearance (right, Luke Evans).

Zeus still wants to influence humanity, however, so he uses an indirect method.  He disguises himself as an elderly man, and mentors the fatherless Theseus from childhood, teaching him to fight as well as urging him to consider “finding a good reason to draw your sword in the first place.”  Zeus says, “If there is one human who can lead them against Hyperion, it would be Theseus.  But it must be his choice.”  I really liked the illustration of this subtle strategy, because I do think that God prepares people for the roles he has in mind for them.  Think of Moses, who grew up in an Egyptian palace, then lived in the wilderness for 40 years, which made him the perfect man to advocate against the Pharaoh and then lead his people in a long-term desert lifestyle.  Or think of why Zechariah and Elizabeth were chosen to be the parents of John the Baptist. “Both of them were upright in the sigh of God, observing all the Lord’s commandments and regulations blamelessly,” (Luke 1:6), making them suitable parents to raise the man who would “make ready a people prepared for the Lord,” (Luke 1:17).  You could even compare Zeus’s choice of a mortal hero in Theseus to God’s choice of David as the next king of Israel, even though he didn’t appear as physically kingly as his older brothers, because “the LORD does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7).

However, unlike the deities depicted in this film, it’s important to note that the Bible does not describe a God that resists explicitly “interfering” in the affairs of man.  Instead,we see a God that walks with his creation in the Garden of Eden, that tells Noah to build an ark and shuts the door of it, that speaks to Moses directly, that appears to the people of Israel as a column of smoke and fire, that desires his people to build a place of worship for his presence to reside, that sends his angels to deliver messages and encouragement or break people out of prison.  Time and again God intervenes and interacts directly with humans, and though he does rely on humans in the ways described above, we can take comfort that we will never hear him say something like the lines Zeus utters to Theseus (after Ares and Athena break his law):

No god will ever come to your aide again.  Do you understand, mortal?  I have faith in you, Theseus.  Prove me right.”

Our God, by contrast, states dozens of times that he will answer our prayers, and even when Jesus is tasking his disciples with the monumental task of spreading the gospel to the entire world, he promises:

And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. –Matthew 28:20

Athena brings a gift of horses. "They will run until their hearts give out."

Many human characters in this movie say they don’t believe in the gods or don’t think they are worthy of worship because they didn’t appear to answer their prayers.  Hyperion’s vow to “end the reign of the gods” is motivated by the lack of the gods’ intervention to prevent the murders of his entire family.  Well, this is a very difficult and real dilemma.  It is difficult to reconcile faith in an all-powerful God with the reality of terrible suffering daily observed here on earth, it can feel at times even to the most devout people as if God isn’t listening.  But the scriptures tell us,

This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us–whatever we ask–we know that we have what we asked of him.” –1 John 5:14-15.

One of the important things to note in this passage is that it is a conditional statement–“if we ask according to his will” Not just “if we ask”.  If we are honestly thinking about God’s will when we pray, we will have to be open to the idea that he might have a larger plan that doesn’t coincide with what we think we need or want right now.  When Joseph was thrown into the pit by his brothers, do you suppose he was praying that he would get out and be able to return home?  Do you suppose he felt that God hadn’t answered his prayer when he was instead sold into slavery?  Yet it was Joseph who later realized, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20).  There is a similarly cool moment in Immortals that illustrates how prayers might be answered in ways you weren’t even thinking about at the time, that end up being better than you could have known to ask for.

**SPOILER ALERT**  A character literally branded as a thief describes his disbelief in the gods by saying, “When I was just a boy I prayed to the gods, for a horse.  But the gods never answered me.  So I stole one instead.”   But at a crucial moment in their travels when they desperately need to race to their destination, Athena gifts the group with horses that take them to the gates just in time, then collapse.  The thief marvels, “it’s the horse I prayed for as a boy!”  Not given to him as a child when it was a frivolous request, but when he was an adult in desperate need.  **END SPOILER**

Other characters, including a council leader, dismiss the idea of the gods entirely, saying:

I understand there are many Hellenics who put faith in gods and legends, but we in the Hellenic Council do not.  They are metaphors, myths! We are a society of laws based on negotiation and reason.

Really, the spectrum of characters in their belief or disbelief in this movie mirror those in our society today.  There are some who believe devoutly, (like Theseus’ mother and the Virgin Oracle Phaedra), some who are ambivalent (like Theseus is initially), some who claim a lack of evidence that the gods exist (like the thief), some who angrily and bitterly reject God, blaming him for their painful experiences (like Hyperion), and some who claim science and logic as their god, (like the council members).

Hyperion is pretty purely evil. He reminds me of 1 Peter 5:8, "Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour," partly because he was literally devouring food in several scenes.

Hyperion goes on and on in this movie in disgusting detail about his “seed” and how he will create immortality for himself on earth by leaving an extensive physical legacy, (i.e. he will rape and impregnate as many women as possible).  He offers the same chance to Theseus, who responds, “My deeds will make me immortal.  Flesh is fleeting, deeds are eternal.” While I’m not certain how theologically accurate it is to say that “deeds” themselves are eternal, I do think the Bible is clear on the consequences of deeds being eternal.  Word choice aside, Theseus is displaying a perspective that is Biblical, the sense that there is something greater than this world and what the world defines as worthwhile or everlasting.  The Bible says:

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.  But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. -Matthew 6:19-20

The Expositor’s Bible Commentary posits that “treasures in heaven” in this passage “refers to whatever is of good and eternal significance that comes out of what is done on earth.  Doing righteous deeds, suffering for Christ’s sake, forgiving one another–all these have the promise of ‘reward.'” (D. A. Carson, vol. 8).  Perhaps this is in line with what a disguised Zeus tells the young hero when he says, “It’s not living as such that’s important, Theseus, it’s living rightly.”

One example of the incredible amount of violence: in the scene above, Theseus kills 11 people within seconds of each other as he fights his way towards saving a loved one. I mean, it's pretty impressive...but very violent. (In a separate fight scene he uses a single spear to kill three people, breaking it off and using the leftovers to stab the next person. I totally understand if you are either repulsed or awed by that; for the record, I was awed.)

There are some incredible moments of ultimate devotion and loyalty in this movie.  They are another one of the reasons why it is rated R, since they involve people being tortured and maimed.  In one instance, Hyperion taunts a monk, saying he knows it is against the monk’s vows to kill either himself or another person, so he might as well give up his weapon and tell them the location of the Virgin Oracle already.  The monk’s response is to cut off his own tongue, in order not to break any of his vows, (including his vow to protect the Oracle).  It’s an incredible act, reminiscent of the passage where Jesus talks about cutting off body parts that cause you to sin, (Mark 9:43-47), and while I think it’s pretty obvious that Jesus was using hyperbole, it’s still an incredibly powerful visual.  Being that dedicated to a cause, that determined to avoid behaviors offensive to your beliefs.

**SPOILER-Y SIDETRACK**  The undying loyalty of the Virgin Oracle’s faithful protectors makes the way she so quickly sleeps with Theseus and tosses away her ability to see the future (which she can only do as long as she is “pure”) very disappointing.  Her reasoning sounds completely selfish, especially when contrasted against the actions of her followers who literally died for her, being cooked to death and each still refusing to stop murmuring “I am the oracle” to protect her identity.  “You were right, Theseus, my visions are a curse.  I want to see the world with my own eyes, feel with my own heart, touch with my own flesh.”  A lot of things about her plotline are disappointing, actually, like, what was the point of her leading Theseus to retrieve the Epirus bow? They lost it almost immediately, by knowingly walking into what they knew was a trap.  This is what I meant by scattered, seemingly pointless plot.  Also, why was it necessary for Theseus to be ‘leading’ this human army anyway?  I mean, the titans were unleashed!  So everyone kind of failed, didn’t they?  But I guess as Zeus says at the end, it’s not over yet, the battle wages on…maybe the point is, things don’t always work out the way either side planned?  **END SPOILER-Y SIDETRACK**

Theseus wields the magically powerful Epirus bow, "a weapon forged by Heracles."

Perhaps my favorite visual from this film was the triple-layered battle scene towards the end.  I think it is a fantastic depiction of the multiple levels of good versus evil that exist in our world daily.  We’re given few details about the way angels and demons interact with our world, (see Daniel 10 for one reference), but we do know that the forces of good and evil are at war, not always within our view, and just as Zeus says, “the fight against evil never ends.”

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. –Ephesians 6:12

Unseen to most humans, angels and demons struggle against each other in the spiritual realm, just as the gods and titans wage war in the film.  Meanwhile, mankind is at war with itself, just as humans are forever struggling as a society against our darker sections, against oppression, against poverty, against injustice, against inequality, against lies, against hatred.  (And yes, humans also go to literal war against each other all to often, unfortunately not always as a part of this struggle for the greater good).  Finally, the one-on-one fight between Theseus and Hyperion can represent the struggle of the individual, to not be swayed by dark temptations, to overcome the fight against evil in their own hearts even as they take part in the ongoing battles around them.  It really is a constant struggle, on all sides.

The ongoing battle between good and evil in the unseen spiritual realm.

Just before Hyperion desecrates a temple, a priest warns, “It’s not too late to end this madness.  Salvation can be yours if you wish it.”  As you can imagine, Hyperion doesn’t exactly take him up on his offer, but it is a true statement.  It is never too late, not even if you are the baddest bad guy.  It’s not too late to join the ongoing war against evil, starting with the battle in your own heart.

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. –Romans 12:21

Colombiana

“Vengeance is Beautiful,” says the poster.  But is it, really?  The Bible says that vengeance is the Lord’s, (Romans 12:19).  Maybe that’s partly because God knows what it does to a person to pursue violent retribution for the wrongs done to you and yours, instead of trusting they will be brought to justice in this world or the next and spending your energies elsewhere.  This movie does a fantastic job of portraying the toll that the choice to seek revenge exacts from a life already filled with too much tragedy.  It really doesn’t promote it’s own tagline.

This story centers around a young Colombian girl, Cataleya, (played by Amandla Stenberg and Zoe Saldana at different ages), whose parents are killed because of some very unclear affiliation with some undefined bad guy and his people.  Probably a drug cartel, but it’s never really explained.  It’s not important.  The story is about the girl.  She escapes, and chooses to define the rest of her life by that tragic experience.  When she finds her uncle, this elementary-aged child says “I want to be a killer.  Can you help?”  To which her uncle, a killer himself, responds, “Sure.”

To me, that moment was a pretty significant statement about the impact of one’s family and home life.  Maybe the determined Cataleya would have grown up to be an assassin regardless.  But what if the reaction to her stated goals, spoken while her grief was still so fresh, had been to discourage her from such a destructive path, instead of facilitate it?  Her uncle has his own tragic reasons for carrying around a deadly past, and he has a great conversation with a grown-up Cata about the futility of what she is seeking, telling her that his own pursuit of personal vengeance “changed nothing,” and that “I still pray that you can find a life apart from this,” but by then it is much too late.

Amandla Stenberg plays young Catalyea, and will be playing Rue in The Hunger Games this March.

This movie is intense without being outrageously violent, and it’s more complex than a mindless action flick.  It still has a lot of plot holes that don’t really get explained or aren’t very well developed, (like what exactly was on that disk, and what exactly was Don Luis’ business, and how did Daniel and “Jennifer” even meet?) but the focus in on Cataleya, and her complicated dichotomy is portrayed extremely well.  She’s an incredibly talented killer, “like mist under a door, a mouse in the walls,” but she’s also emotionally stunted.  She has difficulty relating to people, she can’t even carry on a conversation with her lover without great difficulty.  She doesn’t even have healthy relationships with her grandmother and uncle, who raised her after the death of her parents and who she refers to as “the last pieces of me.”

She’s empty, hollow, and lonely, and even though she gets her justice, she’s now going to have to spend the rest of her life on alert, looking over her shoulder for the law.  The FBI doesn’t just stop looking for you when you’ve killed that many people.  Just think what her life could have been like, still tragic to lose her parents, yes, but she could have moved on, she could have pursued pretty much any career path.  Yet what she chose was to obsessively fixate on deadly revenge, and that, not the violent loss of her parents, is what destroyed her life.

That is one GIANT gun she's toting around.

Terrific movie. I absolutely recommend it.  It shows what so many revenge movies forget, the lesson that holding on to a grudge hurts you more than the person you hold it against.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon

Well, it was pretty much what i expected.  The highest compliment I can give this movie is to say that it isn’t terrible.  It’s mindless summer entertainment, built around explosions and cool mid-air CGI transformations, (some of them inserted into recycled footage), rather than any sort of plot or character development.  You could totally go to the bathroom at any point during this movie and not miss anything important. My husband remarked that a lot of the dialogue sounded like video game blurbs; somewhat random, generic “let’s go fight!” or “here’s what we need to do next” instructions.  (To see my raw notes, including a lot of bad lines, click here.)

Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf) is a whiny college grad looking for a job.  Maybe some of us can relate to the job-hunting part.  And maybe some of us were incredibly irritated at having to watch him complain for the first twenty minutes about how he doesn’t have an awesome job or car, being jealous and angry with his girlfriend (I’m just going to go ahead and refer to her as Sex Symbol, which is an accurate description of her role), and not appreciating that she is supportive.  He feels like he deserves so much more than he has. He keeps trying to remind people that he’s a hero, and he has a presidential medal to prove it.

He’s ungrateful and unwilling to humble himself.  And even though he ends up taking a less-than-desirable job for about a day, he doesn’t ever exemplify the Biblical work ethic, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men,” (Colossians 3:23).  He could also stand to take a lesson from a true hero that will be exemplified on the big screen in a week, when Deathly Hallows comes out.  If you’ve read the books, you know who I’m talking about.  A hero that is never thanked or praised, and who remains silently steadfast anyway.  (I can’t wait!)

Anyway, this movie has really, really, bad writing.  That makes it harder to analyze, because it doesn’t really have much of a purposeful message or any consistency.  It doesn’t even stick with the themes it brings up at the beginning; many of them aren’t resolved.  Does Sam end up getting the recognition and job he feels like he deserves, or does he learn to accept his position and stop being so annoying?  I couldn’t tell you.  But that isn’t the only thing that’s unclear at the end.  **SPOILER ALERT**  So when their planet goes away, do the Decepticons just give up, or die?  It appears to be resolved, but is it? How? I thought they still outnumbered the Autobots, because they beamed a whole bunch of them in, and if the destruction of the home planet destroyed them why don’t the Autobots also die?  Whatever. Explosions! Something vague about America and freedom! **END SPOILER**

I would say the worst thing about this movie message-wise is the sexism. The camera consistently ogles Sex Symbol, (it doesn’t even pan up to her face until she’s been onscreen almost a full minute, lingering instead on her pantless legs and backside.)  She’s perpetually dressed in tiny tight clothing and heels, while Power Woman (head of National Security, I think) is an ice queen who hates to be addressed respectfully as ma’am, (because, like, how can a woman be in such a powerful position if she’s actually, you know, womanly?)  Also, Sam’s mom is a complete idiot.  So there are your choices for female representation in this film.  Thank you, director Michael Bay.  To be fair, a lot of the male characters are also flat and stereotypical. I mean, I didn’t even like Sam!  He’s just whiny and arrogant.  This is a terrible movie character-wise in general!  My husband said, “Well, it’s about the Transformers, primarily. The people are just to set the story up,” but I didn’t feel like Optimus, Sentinel or Megatron were fleshed out (haha) any better than their human counterparts.  Their relationships are told through dialogue rather than shown.

I guess Optimus is kind of a good role model, because he is committed to defending the humans and their planet when he doesn’t have to be, just because his mentor “taught me that all creatures deserve to be free,” but I didn’t find him compelling.  His motivation isn’t really clear, he doesn’t get any character development, he’s just the good guy so he does expected good guy things. **SPOILER ALERT** Except for the part where he just flat-out kills Sentinel, his supposed mentor and beloved long-lost leader, who admittedly turned bad but is now literally begging “Optimus, no!”  I think, again, it’s just poor writing.  It’s easier to kill him and end the scene than introduce complexity, compassion, a discussion about how he could be rehabilitated or what a just punishment should be.  I guess he did betray the Autobots, but still…it seemed like a cruel moment for Optimus.  **END SPOILER**

So, to sum up, this movie is about entertainment, and not story.  Oh, I almost forgot; it’s also about revisionist history lessons, and Transformer-related conspiracy theories regarding the Apollo 11 moon mission and the Chernobyl disaster.  Real-life astronaut Buzz Aldrin makes an appearance as himself, so apparently he is not as offended by this fictionalized version of history as the ones who say he never went to the moon.  (He once punched a guy for saying that).

I can’t even think of a clever line to end this with.  That’s how little content is actually in this movie.

Does anybody see a decent script lying around? Anyone?

Repo Men

This film came out in 2010, and I thought it looked like a very interesting idea for a story, but I didn’t get a chance to see it in theaters.  That turned out to be no great loss, because it wasn’t all that good.  But it did have one line that I really, really liked.

The premise: in the future, medical science has advanced to the point where artificial body parts are reliably mass-produced.  So there’s almost no need for anyone to die, ever, because they could just keep replacing everything as it wears out or gets sick.  But capitalism doesn’t work that way, and in this story no one can truly benefit from the wondrous technology because the company that sells the organs won’t make a profit that way.  The procedures and equipment are all incredibly expensive, but who can refuse to sign the payment contracts to get a new liver, knowing it means death if they don’t?  “You owe it to your family.  You owe it to yourself,” repeats a smarmy salesmen (played by Liev Schreiber).

He also states, “we can’t make money if people pay.”  That’s where Remy (Jude Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) come in.  They are the Repo Men, and their job is to repossess artificial organs on which the purposefully too-high payments have fallen behind, by cutting them out of the receivers’ bodies.  This typically means the person dies, but Remy and Jake aren’t bothered.  It’s “just a job.”  And they always read a statement asking if the patient would like an ambulance to be on hand before they cut them open, but it’s clearly a legality as Remy is shown reading it after knocking his victim unconscious with a taser.

Then there’s the twist that you see coming a mile away: Remy suffers an accident and has to get an artificial heart himself.  Now he’s on the other side of the system.  Suddenly aware of his own mortality, he can’t bring himself to do any more repo jobs, and therefore can’t make the money to pay off his own heart.  After that it’s pretty much just an action movie, running around trying to escape and fighting various people off, and the entire third act kind of falls apart story-wise, and the ending is really stupid. It’s like somebody had this great idea, and then it just became an excuse for stereotypical fight scenes.

Part of the message here seems to be a critique of the American health care system.  It says that doctors don’t care about their patients, that profits are more important than people, that hospitals are evil corporations and everybody could really be perfectly healthy if only the people at the top weren’t so greedy and corrupt.  Of course it’s all hypothetical, and in the real world things are not so extreme or so black and white, but sometimes fiction provides a safe place to talk about controversial subjects.  Despite it’s descent into illogical sequences of gun fights, knife fights, and fire extinguisher axe fights, Repo Men could be a good way to start a conversation about the flaws in our health care (and health insurance) systems, and what we can do to prevent this kind of future scenario.

My favorite line was something Remy said when he finally decided to quit his line of work, no longer able to believe in the mantra “it’s just a job” that he himself had once repeated. “But it’s not just a job, is it?  It’s who you are.  If you want to change who you are, start by changing what you do.”  That is excellent advice!  I don’t know of any Bible verses that specifically support it.  But C.S. Lewis dedicated a section to it in his book Mere Christianity (Book 4, chapter 7).  Here is an excerpt:

There are two kinds of pretending.  There is a bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you.  But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing.  When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are.  And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were.  Very often the only way to get a quality in real life is to start behaving as if you had it already.

So let’s practice living like Christ.  Let’s change our character by consciously deciding to act how God wants us to.  Then when the Reap-o Man comes for our souls, we’ll be ready.

Oh well, at least the first two thirds of the movie were good.

Ninja Assassin

I was not expecting this movie to have as much story as it did.  From the previews it seemed like it was made for the purpose of including as many ninja fight scenes as possible, because ninjas are such a cool and popular mythology right now.  Having seen the film, that’s probably still an accurate assessment, but it wasn’t completely ridiculous.  Bad dialogue, yes.  Way over-the-top violence and a plethora of fight scenes, absolutely.  But it did have a workable plot, that made it as plausible as possible for the story to be believable, to keep the myth alive.  (But if ninjas were real, wouldn’t we have seen or heard about them?  No, because they’re ninjas! You never see them!  They’re too awesome!)

Of course there is an incredible amount of violence and blood, but it’s cartoonish.  All the blood is super red, and there’s way too much of it.  I think some of it is even CGI.  I kind of doubt whether you can really cut off people’s extremities in a single slice with a little ninja knife.  But people can’t really literally blend into a shadow the way they do in the film, either.  So it’s all highly stylized and fantastical.  It’s like Kill Bill in that way.

Basically, the ninja clans exist (in secret) by kidnapping orphans and putting them through vigorous, relentless training until they are ninjas, then they hire them out as assassins.  What if a child doesn’t want to be a ninja?  Not a problem for the clans, since their law dictates that any traitor should be killed.  “Betrayal begets blood,” they say.  They also say, “weakness compels strength,” I guess meaning if someone else is weak, you have to beat/kill them, to show you’re stronger?  I’m not sure, but it’s not a system with any room for grace or mercy.

Of course there is a child, (Kiriko), who doesn’t fit into this harsh world she’s trapped in.  She can’t bear to watch the sufferings of others, so she secretly puts ointment on their wounds at night.  She refuses to cut another boy when she beats him in a fight, and as punishment she is cut across the face and locked in a bamboo cage for days.  Eventually she tries to escape, and is killed.  And our main character loved her, and basically he is now out to destroy the entire Ozunu clan to avenge her.  And also because if he doesn’t kill them all they will never stop hunting him down; he becomes a “traitor” himself when he refuses to kill another young captured runaway.  Raizo is “the name [our hero] was given.”

Raizo.  He. Was. Ripped!  Are you kidding me?!  How do you get a body like that?  I don’t know how many of the stunts might have used cables and harnesses and stuff, but I don’t care, it was impressive.  Especially the fight sequence in the street, when Raizo was being persued by his former Ozunu brothers, so they are all flat-out running against the flow of traffic and flipping over cars and stabbing at each other sideways in-between other cars and spinning out of the way at the last second.  I know, it sounds really cheesy.  But it was awesome.   See for yourself.

Kiriko’s story is the most positive message in this movie, I would say.  Raizo smuggles her water to drink when she is locked in the cage for taking another’s punishment upon herself.  He says, “Kiriko, why?” and she resolutely responds, “Why am I in here, or why are you out there?” I loved that; rather than break down, whine or complain, rather than giving some emotional response about how she couldn’t bring herself to hurt another human like that, her answer assumes a certainty that her course of action is right, and that’s enough reason to follow it, and why isn’t he?  Later, when she is making her escape, Raizo tries to talk her out of it, reminding her that their cruel clan leader will cut her heart out if she does.  But she insists, “I have to.”  Even knowing she will die, she cannot be swayed from doing what she is convinced is right.  She would rather die trying to do the right thing than make the compromises she would have to in order to continue living with the Ozunu clan.  It’s really inspiring.

Raizo’s quest to avenge her is brave, and his dedication and discipline in training is impressive.  But he could stand to learn a thing or two from his girlfriend.  The ultimate messages of this movie are that violence and killing can bring you peace, or that redemption is found through revenge.  That’s a very common theme, but not one that Charles Xavier or the Bible agree with.  Professor X says “killing…will not bring you peace” in X-Men: First Class, and Jesus says, “…do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. ” (Matthew 5:39).  That seems almost impossible, especially if the slap is coming from a deadly ninja star.  But Kiriko would have been brave enough to do it.

Many of the ninja’s Raizo kills are targeting an innocent victim.  That seems noble.  Is it justifiable to kill them, then?  This is a puzzle to which I don’t have the answer right now.  But I think it’s much, much harder to answer affirmatively as a Christian.  I like what one of the (real-life) missionaries in End of the Spear said, before he was killed by members of the Waodani tribe he was trying to reach with the gospel: “Son, we can’t shoot the Waodani. They’re not ready for heaven… we are.”  I hope I would be as brave as he and Kiriko were, if faced with a similar situation.

Raizo can heal himself, which, conviniently enough, allows for even more epic fight scenes