Becky and I went with Corban and Conroy to see the new movie Divergent this week at the AMC theaters in Lone Tree, CO. The Moviefone website at Divergent describes the movie as follows…

“Set in a world where people are divided into distinct factions based on human virtues, Tris Prior is warned she is Divergent and will never fit into any one group. When she discovers a conspiracy by a faction leader to destroy all Divergents, Tris must learn to trust in the mysterious Four and together they must find out what makes being Divergent so dangerous before it’s too late.”

The Review:  Divergent is based on a popular book series, which are always a hit or a miss.  Eragon for example was a really popular book, but the film was nothing like the book and the movie was terrible.  The Seventh Son is coming out based on The Last Apprentice series here in United States and it doesn’t look anything like the book series.  I have read all of the books and the trailer looks like it’s not even close to the book series, so there should be many disappointed fans.  The Hunger Games was done well and The Lord of the Rings series and The Hobbit are probably the best movies ever made from a fantasy book that the readers could feel really good about, even with a few of its shortcomings.  The Harry Potter series was another one that was great, even if you never read the books. Divergent is very well done, like Hunger Games.  It’s a bit like The Hunger Games with a futuristic world after the coming Apocalypse.

Divergent is a bit of a strange science fiction flick.  It is pretty well done and entertaining that kept our interest from beginning to end.  It’s a bit like Harry Potter in that there are five different classes of people in this world of the future, which reminded us of having the different groups of wizards at the Hogwarts school.  There is also the unlikely hero, in this case a young woman, who doesn’t fit into any one of the groups of people.  She is trained in combat skills by one of the groups that are designed to protect this strange modern society.  However, if it is found out that she is a Divergent, which is someone who doesn’t fit in because of her advanced skills, she will be eliminated by the group that she has joined to protect this modern society.

The movie has plenty of action, drama and suspense.  It kept our interest and it’s somewhat like a cross between Harry Potter and The Hunger Games, which you’ve figured out by now.  If you liked those movies, than you will probably like this film with several plot twists and unique characters.  It’s entertaining, but a bit disturbing to think that what the future would be like after a nuclear holocaust based on the sinful nature of mankind.  Utopia will always have a flaw because of the pursuit of power and greed, which is what this movie shows quite well.   

We all liked this movie and it was worth the trip.

John – *** Worth The Trip
Becky – *** Worth The Trip

Conroy – **** Don’t Miss It
Corban – **** Don’t Miss It

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

I talked Conroy into going and seeing the new movie NOAH with me tonight at the AMC theaters in Castle Rock, CO. The Moviefone website at Noah describes the movie as follows…

“Russell Crowe stars as Noah in the film inspired by the epic story of courage, sacrifice and hope. Directed by visionary filmmaker Darren Aronofsky.”

The Review:  Conroy reluctantly agreed to go and see this movie with me, after he saw God’s Not Dead with Becky and I earlier this week.  I told him that it would probably be a good science fiction movie, since it’s impossible for the morons in Hollywood to ever make a good movie about the Bible.  I’m sorry, but they’re completely ignorant and illiterate when it comes to the Bible and I was right once again, but wrong that it would be a good science fiction movie.  This movie sucked!  I think even the actors were bored with it and didn’t like it.

Noah turns out to be a psychopath, ready to kill his children because God wants all of mankind dead, including Noah and his family.  That’s really Biblical?  Not hardly.  The guy who made this film was obviously an environmental activist, who has never actually read the Bible.  If he did, he must have been eating mushrooms at the time.  Which Noah does in this movie with his grandfather played by Anthony Hopkins, in order to hear from God   Apparently, the way you heard from God to write the Bible and avoid getting swept up in God’s judgement is to drink herbal tea.

After all, God was destroying the Earth because fallen angels came down to try to help men.  They disobeyed God, but these “Watchers” shared their amazing technology with men that caused mankind to destroy the Earth and kill all the animals.  These fallen angels had really good intentions and God simply misunderstood them.  After all, they were not really here to deceive men, so God encased them in a body of stone to serve mankind for eternity.  They earn their wings back though by the end of the film by asking God for forgiveness, after protecting Noah and helping him build the Ark.  I think the people who made this film have been deceived by them.  This movie was not even close to anything that resembled the Bible, except for a flood and a guy and his family in an ark that landed on a mountain.  Don’t go to see this movie, expecting to see a Bible based film or you will be really disappointed.

I’m not just disappointed that it was a total exploitation and re-writing of the Bible, but it was just really horrible movie making with great actors.  I can’t believe that people actually liked this movie, even the critics.  All I can figure is the critics had to be paid off.  The characters were all insane.  At one point in the movie there is a battle between Noah and the evil leader of mankind, Tubal Cain, but you don’t know whether to cheer for Noah or Tubal Cain because they are both out of their minds.   The battle scenes looked fake with terrible CGI.  Later on, the character Tubal Cain chops his way into the Ark, during the storm and hides out with the help of Noah’s son Ham, who is thinking about killing his father Noah, and the guy starts eating the animals that God put on the Ark.  He’s eating them raw too, which was just absurd.  The only cool part about this movie were the special effects with the animals and the flood itself.  The rest of the time,  I thought we were watching a soap opera  and I heard numerous people laughing during the film, like we did several times.  It could easily become a regular showing at Scientology conferences or Vegan Festivals everywhere with the rock people with bright eyes, much like the tree people in Lord of The Rings.

As I mentioned, I didn’t expect this film to follow the Bible because Hollywood doesn’t know how to do it  It’s way beyond their skill set.  Think about it, can you name one good movie based on the Bible?  The Passion of the Christ was close.  The Ten Commandments was the best, but it’s too old and then The Book of Eli, but that’s not based on a Bible character, so that is pretty much it.  I just had no idea that they would make a movie called Noah and it would be so incredibly bad as what we just watched.  Steve Carell’s comedy about Noah, Evan Almighty, was a better film than this and that was supposed to be a joke.  This version of Noah was painful to watch and we wanted to leave half way through the movie because we were bored out of our minds with lunatics running around the screen like something out of Kevin Costner’s Water World, vegetarian cult like messages throughout, and a Creator and his prophet, who apparently didn’t even like innocent people.  Talk about totally misrepresenting God and Noah.  I wouldn’t want to be in these guys shoes when they stand before Him.  They might end up like their imaginary Watchers.

Our advice is to not get swept away with the flood of hype surrounding this movie.  Run from Noah before you drown in the theater watching this ridiculous film.  It’s definitely a don’t bother and we would love our time that was wasted back, along with our money.

John – * Don’t Bother
Conroy – * Don’t Bother 

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see the new Christian movie God’s Not Dead with our son Conroy at the AMC Theaters in Highlands Ranch, CO yesterday. The MovieFone website at God’s Not Dead describes the movie as follows…

“A devoutly religious college freshman must debate the existence of God with his skeptical philosophy professor in order to earn a passing grade in this faith-based comedy-drama featuring Kevin Sorbo and David A.R. White. Josh Wheaton (Shane Harper) is a Christian who never thought his faith would get in the way of his higher education. As a result, he is deeply shaken when, on the first day of his Philosophy class, Professor Radisson (Sorbo) begins the semester by demanding that each of his students deny the existence of God in order to earn a passing grade…”

The Review: At the risk of upsetting many of my fellow Christian friends, I have to be brutally honest about this film.  And I do mean “brutally honest”.  The first thing that I wanted to write is “God’s not Dead, but Christian movies are.”.  Why do Christians have to make such terrible movies and get Christians to support them out of “necessity” because they are so bad.  If they were good, they could stand on their own merit.

The critics thought this film was terrible and I usually disagree with them, but not this time.  All the Christians I have met, save a few, think it’s great because the Gospel is being preached.  Sorry, but the Gospel doesn’t need to be preached in a terrible, superficial way that will make anyone with half-a-brain wish they wouldn’t have wasted their money to see your movies.  The only good actor in this film was Sorbo, who played the atheist professor and he couldn’t save this movie.

Like Conroy said, “Dad, I think I just watched that terrible movie Valentines Day, remade with a Christian theme.”, which pretty much summed up this movie.  The movie is supposed to be about a young guy who takes on his Professor about whether or not God is dead, which it partially fulfills and that part of the movie was actually somewhat entertaining.  However, then you jump around to a liberal woman who is diagnosed with cancer, a Muslim girl who becomes a Christian and loses her family for listening to Billy Graham, a Pastor and his friend visiting from Africa who tells us over and over that “God is good all the time and all the time God is good.” while his car won’t start, the wife of the atheist Professor who happens to be a Christian, one of the guys from Duck Dynasty making a cameo appearance with his wife, which made no sense, and we witness the entire movie turn into a convoluted mess.

It then all ends up with the whole town attending a Newsboys concert with everyone living happily ever after.  Come on! This is Christian art and the best that Christian film makers have to offer our whacked out world?  Your audience is just other Christians because nobody wants to see a made for television Hallmark type movie on the Big Screen, other than Christians who want to feel good about themselves for supporting Jesus.  This movie was painful to watch and pretty much ridiculous.  They should have just focused on the conflict between the guy in college and the Professor and actually made a really interesting film, but they are obviously afraid of offending someone. And I obviously am not.

That is my review.  Now for all of my fellow Christians out there who are going to get mad at me as a believer in Jesus because I thought this movie pretty much sucked, I want to challenge you.  Go and watch The Book of Eli with real actors, a real story and a real Christian theme.  That was an amazing movie that the Christian community never got behind because it was “far too violent”.  Machine Gun Preacher that you can read the review of here was another great film that many Christians didn’t like because God doesn’t use machine guns to save lives.  The Passion of the Christ was a great film because Mel Gibson actually put some passion behind it with quality actors and was not willing to compromise and spit out Christian drivel.  Sure, he has some personal issues and needs Jesus in his life, but at least he made something real and Jesus wasn’t walking through the meadows with birds landing on his shoulders, like a princess in a Disney cartoon.

Since this is my movie blog, I have to add that Mel really screwed up on the veil of the Temple being ripped in two from top to bottom when Jesus died and he could have really demonstrated the significance of Jesus death.  The veil was around 60 feet in height, 30 feet in width and four inches thick and no man could have torn it in two from top to bottom, which is what happened to give us all entrance into the Holy of Holies through Christ’s death.  That’s amazing!  The crucifixion of Jesus by the Romans and the Jews (I’m not going to be politically correct here because they were both at fault) was brutal and Mel actually showed its brutality. Why do Christian film makers continue to avoid reality?  Do everything unto the glory of God is the call of the Christian, so stop making bad movies!  Make a movie that can compete with The Lord of the Rings or at the very least Veronica Mars that was crowd funded by their fan base and had real actors.

Where I live in Castle Rock, some Christians convinced the theater to bring God’s Not Dead for one night, so that they could support it.  Why? Why do you want to support poorly made films?  I don’t get it.  So you can text out “God’s Not Dead” to your Christian friends and get them to go see this movie?  This movie is bound for Netflix or Redbox and that’s where you should wait to see it.  If you actually sent a real message to these Christian “artists” to stop being pansies and afraid of offending people with the Bible, you would have far better results sharing the Gospel with the world.  Which is the ultimate mission of these Christian films.  Why didn’t the Christian film community or the Jewish community for that matter (the Bible is a Jewish book) sink their money into NOAH that is coming out, so that the prophet Noah would not be portrayed as the environmentalist prophet?  Instead we get to see “Noah the environmentalist” and God concerned about the world’s carbon footprint thousands of years ago before rain or SUV’s, instead of their sinful nature and incredible wickedness.  It’s comical.  Maybe God wiping out everything with a flood and a boat, then starting over because men were violent, wicked and totally sexually immoral was just too controversial for the Christian community?

Does anyone who makes these films actually read the Bible or do they just wear their “What Would Jesus Do” apparel?   Did you all miss that the Prophet Elijah killed all the Prophets of Baal by cutting them in pieces, after God smoked them out?  That would be an awesome film!  Did you skip over the ten plagues of Egypt because God didn’t look like a “Lover” when He wiped Egypt off the map and killed the first born children without mercy?  Does Job’s plight and the fact that God allowed Satan to kill his entire family not sit well with you because it’s “stinkin’ thinking”? Did you pull out of the Bible that David committed murder and adultery and had so much blood on his hands that God wouldn’t let him build the Temple?  What about how Solomon was a massive womanizer that ended up coming between his relationship with God?  Did you forget that Paul was put in prison, shipwrecked, stoned, beaten and he didn’t get to attend a Newsboys concert to solve all of his life’s problems?  Did you miss that Peter lied, Judas betrayed, John, James and the other Apostles argued and fought, Paul murdered and stoned Stephen, Jesus wept and sweat blood, begging God to take His cup from Him?  The fantasy land that the Christian community continues to portray in these “Christian” films is not even close to what the Bible teaches or looks anything like in reality?

The list goes on and on of amazing stories in the Bible.  Because those people were real, but Christian movies are not real.  They are all the same “Jesus will solve all your problems, so come and sing a song.“, which are just formula based films to appeal to a niche’ audience.  I think we should demand better.  Okay, I said what millions of other Christians are probably thinking, but may not be willing to say.

Go read your Bible and skip this movie or wait for it to hit the rental box.  I’ll be nice now and give it a Rental, but just barely.

John – ** Rental
Becky – ** Rental
Conroy – * Don’t Bother

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy

Becky and I went to see Non-Stop at the AMC Theaters in Castle Rock, CO last week. The Fandango website at Non-Stop describes the movie as follows…

“Global action star Liam Neeson stars in “Non-Stop,” a suspense thriller played out at 40,000 feet in the air. During a transatlantic flight from New York City to London, U.S. Air Marshal Bill Marks (Neeson) receives a series of cryptic text messages demanding that he instruct the airline to transfer $150 million into an off-shore account. Until he secures the money, a passenger on his flight will be killed every 20 minutes. The film reunites Neeson with “Unknown” director Jaume Collet-Serra and producer Joel Silver, and co-stars Golden Globe Award winner Julianne Moore.”

The Review: We went into seeing this movie with really low expectations.  We figured that Non-Stop would be on the same level as The Gray, which was the last terrible Liam Neeson movie that we saw together.  We often joke about that movie by saying, “Stare back at them.” which is what Neeson’s character would tell everyone from a pack of wild wolves surrounded them.  It was a very cheesy movie to say the least and we expected the same from this movie.

The idea of a airplane being taken over after 9/11 seems possible, but probably not plausible given the tight amount of security.  In this movie the plane is hi-jacked by terrorists who want to recreate the fears of 9/11 once again.  Unfortunately, the film is politically charged with Hollywood make believe that takes away from the film.  The terrorists are not Muslim radicals as most Americans would expect, since that’s who took down the World Trade Centers on 9/11.  The characters in this film are the least likely to perform an act of terror on Americans, but Hollywood likes to pretend as though reality is really myth and myth is reality.  One of the characters on the plane is an Arab and he’s one of the hero’s in the movie, which was clearly the Director and writers trying to get a message out to the audience.

In spite of it’s shortcomings and political overtones, the movie was better than we expected.  The story was pretty good and the characters and acting were well done.  The movie has several plot twists and quite a bit of action and excitement. It’s predictable over all since you know that the plane is being hijacked.  We liked the movie.  It’s not fantastic, but it was entertaining.  We thought it was worth the trip and it will be a good rental when it comes out.

John – *** Worth The Trip
Becky – *** Worth The Trip

Sponsored By: SHAREMERCHANT.com:  Get paid to share!  Find out how you can earn $1,500 a month using and recommending products with a low cost business.  Become a Share Merchant!

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Auto Consultant – John Boyd: The Cool Car Guy

John is an auto consultant and owner of CoolCarGuy.com with his license at a car dealership in Denver, Colorado. He can help you save time and money on any make or model, new or used, lease or purchase or consign your vehicle – nationwide! Call or email John about your next vehicle! jboyd@coolcarguy.com or Twitter@coolcarguy