• GENRE: Thriller / Action
• ACTORS: Christian Slater, Patricia Arquette, Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walken, Gary Oldman, Val Kilmer, Dennis Hopper, Saul Rubinek, Bronson Pinchot, Michael Rapaport, Tom Sizemore. Also a brief appearance by the top grossing actor of all time, Samuel L. Jackson.
• RATING: R [1.  The “Director’s Cut” which I rented from Netflix was UNRATED.]
• PARENTAL NOTE: Not intended for children or teenagers. Bad language and questionable situations. Violence. Sex. Gangsters. Prostitution. Drug usage and sale. Brief nudity. If you can think of any other bad element found in movies, it’s probably in TRUE ROMANCE too, and I just forgot to mention it. The overriding message in this film is: Crime Pays!
• INTENDED AUDIENCE: This movie is intended for fans of the genre, and will almost certainly not be appreciated by others. I’m sure the film makers think this movie is appropriate for adults. I’m not sure that it is.
• GENERAL PLOT: (No spoilers) The two leading characters (played by Christian Slater and Patricia Arquette) meet in a theater, sleep together that night and get married the next day. They end up with a suitcase full of drugs and are on the run, a half step ahead of the gangsters whose drugs they stole, and the cops.
• REVIEW: This film has a lot to offer for fans of the genre. Lots of action. Shooting, fights, reckless car driving, etc. The acting is superb. My review standards are much more foregiving than most Christian film critics. I can look past the cursing (almost non-stop in this movie). I can look past the gratuitous violence, which is, again, almost non-stop. I can see past the initial illicit relationship. Whether their marriage the first day after meeting “cures” the immoral relationship, or just compounds it, is debatable. This film has some really evil characters, balanced by some really likable characters. There are even some characters we can both love and hate. The problem presented with this film is that even the really “nice” people are drug dealers. And without giving any spoilers, it’s fair to say that their life of crime definately DID PAY! This is just the sort of film that respectible Christians say Hollywood should not make. For good reason–it’s trash. Yet, even as trash, it is[3. perhaps unfortunately] completely entertaining.
• RECOMMENDATION: This is an “Action” movie. Many people will be highly offended by every movie in this genre because of the violence, bad language and other questionable elements, as mentioned above. Except for the extreme bad moral message that crime does pay, I could easily rate this movie with 4 or 5 stars. As it is, I’m hard pressed to recommend it for your casual viewing at all.
• RATING (out of 5 stars): ★★★★★

• GENRE: Hard to say. It’s an Anti-Christian rant with a zombie theme.
• ACTORS: Janette Armand, Doug Fahl, Cooper Hopkins, Bill Johns, Russell Hodgkinson, Ali Hamedani, Cornelia Moore, James Mesher, Linda Jensen, Victoria Drake
• RATING: R
• PARENTAL NOTE: Not intended for children. Bad language and questionable situations. Violence. Offensive to several groups, including a strong anti-Christian theme.
• INTENDED AUDIENCE: This movie is intended for fans of the genre, and may not be appreciated by others.
• GENERAL PLOT: (No spoilers) The usual. There is no real plot to speak of in Zombies of Mass Destruction, although having a plot is generally not a prerequisite to a good zombie movie. Zombies get loose. The surviving humans cope. Most of them get bit and turn into zombies. A few get disemboweled in classic zombie fashion.
• REVIEW: I am a Christian who loves zombie movies. However, this film is not so much a zombie movie, as it is an Anti-Christian rant, with a zombie theme. Seriously, you can’t be too thin-skinned if you want to enjoy zombie movies. Many zombie movies depict characters questioning their faith, or have some less than flattering reference to the church. However, in the case of Zombies of Mass Destruction most of the movie is devoted to showing how bad and evil Christians are; and to demonstrate that neither Christians nor Christ Himself have any relevance or worth. To be fair, other groups are attacked as well. There is a school of thought which holds that if you are equally offensive to all groups, that no one should be offended. I don’t agree.
  .
  The production values, zombie gore, etc. are actually not bad. There are a few quality disembowelings–always the hallmark of a good zombie film. If the producers of this film cut out the offensive, anti-Christian and anti-Other-Group portions, the actual zombie film wouldn’t be too bad, except that you would be left with a short, rather than a feature length film. I read on another web site that Zombies of Mass Destruction is a “social commentary.” I agree. The commentary is basically this: “Christians are no good.”
• RECOMMENDATION:[2. If you wonder why zombie themes and horror films have space on a Christian website like K_Line Christian Online, please see my blog post on point] This is a zombie horror movie. Many people will be highly offended by every movie in this genre because of the graphic violence, gore, language and other questionable elements. However, this film should really per categorized as an anti-Christian rant with a zombie theme. MY RECOMMENDATION: Don’t waste your time.
• RATING (out of 5 stars): ★★★★★ (1/2 star, for production values, and actual zombie elements only)

FOOTNOTE:
★★★★★★★★★★

• GENRE: Horror / Adventure
• ACTORS: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron, Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Garret Dillahunt, Michael K. Williams, Molly Parker, Bob Jennings, Agnes Herrmann
• RATING: R
• PARENTAL NOTE: Not intended for children. Violence. Cannibalism. Bad language and questionable situations. Nudity.
• INTENDED AUDIENCE: This movie features cannibalism as a prominent theme. Needless to say, this film is not for everyone. Completely inappropriate for children, most teenagers and many adults.
• GENERAL PLOT: (No spoilers) The end of the world is a filthy place. No one has enough to eat. Some choose to eat what others would starve before eating. A man and his son prove that evil is never far from home. And by the way, they don’t have a home, either.
• REVIEW: A while back, when I reviewed another film, I remarked,
  

  if I had to sum up the mood of [SHERLOCK HOLMES] in one word, that word would be “filth.”

  Actually, I stand corrected. I had no idea what real filth was before I saw THE ROAD. “Dark theme” doesn’t begin to describe the world in which this film takes place. It literally looks like no one has taken a bath, or cleaned anything in the world in the 10 years since a bad case of armageddon broke out. A lot of things are left unexplained in this movie[1. Though events may be explained in the book.] For example, what happened, and what in the world is going on??? How and why did the human race get mostly exterminated? I mention these points in passing, though they really don’t detract from the story. The story itself is mostly plausible, given the underlying premise that most plant and animal life is gone. Whether human beings would sink to the decree of depravity shown in the film is a legitimate point for discussion. This film is at it’s essence the story of the relationship of a father and his son. It shows how they react to the extreme violence and evil on “the road,” and how they deal with their own evil. Though I would hope for better from human nature, I’d be hard pressed to prove that the outcome of the world would be otherwise, given the circumstances presented. Only a speck of hope is allowed to penetrate the dark world on the road. That speck of hope never grows. From a Christian point of view, I wouldn’t argue that this movie presents a Biblical view of the end of the world, or even of the last days. If you are intent on proving THE ROAD has some relationship to the end times as described in the Bible, you could probably find support for your point of view. I think the safer premise is to view THE ROAD strictly as a work of fiction.

• RECOMMENDATION:[2. If you wonder why zombie themes and horror films have space on a Christian website like K_Line Christian Online, please see my blog post on point] This is a horror movie. Many people will be highly offended by every movie in this genre because of the graphic violence, gore, language and other questionable elements. That being said, many horror movies present these elements in a gratuitous, non-essential manner, purely for shock value and depravity. THE ROAD certainly has graphic violence, gore, language and other questionable elements. There’s even a bit of nudity.[3. The presentation of nudity is not sexual] Yet I wouldn’t call these elements completely gratuitous or non-essential. For the most part, these elements are important in advancing the story, though they did carry shock value and depravity. I liked the movie for it’s strong moral message. That moral message is mostly presented in the father’s increasingly and shockingly BAD behavior. The father faces a situation not unlike that of Job, in the Old Testament. That is, when the the world falls into a complete state of ruin, can a man remain good? And Godly? In the case of Job, we know the answer is “Yes.” Of course, the film makers don’t tell us if the father in this movie was ever a Godly man. Though we do see a reference to prayer presented in the film. You’ll have to wade though the violence in “The Road” to see if the anyone retains their virtues when this world falls apart.
• RATING (out of 5 stars): ★★★★★