Very odd, yet mildly entertaining (at least for the first half hour) sci-fi movie about a college professor, named John, who is about to move, tries to ditch his friends and their going away party, but they catch himi at his cabin to question him as to why he’s leaving and where he’s suddenly going. He dodges the question, acting sort of odd, finally telling his close friends (professor colleagues) that he’s been alive 14, 000 years. He goes on to tell them about his thousands of years on earth, meeting Van Gough, being taught by Buddah, battling the black death and other disease. The characters start to play along, thinking he’s lost his mind or playing an offensive joke. A friend and doctor (and therapist) joins the group and questions John about his father, if he envied those who actually died, if he pondered “why not me?” etc.
An interesting idea, and well done at the start. It was nice to see Tony Todd (Candyman) playing an intellectual pondering big questions and all. It was a nice setting- a small cabin with a bunch of professors discussing big important hypotheticals, a fire roaring in the fireplace, just a bunch of friends together with their caveman professor buddy who is exposing his secrets.
But, the film turned an odd, annoying, and slightly offensive turn when they all started to attack religion, mocking Christianity especially. John, then, tells his friends that he’s a figure from the Bible. He made note that the Bible is nonsense, with his friends agreeing. Which figure from the Bible was he? Moses? No, says John, Moses was a myth crafted after a Syrian mythological figure. The Bible text? Nonsense in large parts, mainly just Bhuddism with a touch of Hebrew they all say.
No, John is none other than Jesus Christ. Well, he was Jesus, but “Christ” was just a label they put on him. He’s not supernatural, he’s not a son of God. He was just a man who was taught ideas by Buddah and people started to follow him. The truth is- he wasn’t nailed to a cross, they merely tied him to it, and someone made up a fiction of him being nailed to a cross. He never died, but rather stopped his breath through practice, and when put into a tomb he came to. He tried to come out and hide away, but his followers discovered him and were glad, so they created a myth.
One woman is clearly a Christian and is very insulted. She tells John that he’s being blasphemous, but the others in the room are basically attacking her feelings and the Bible and Christianity itself.
They went into ideas about how Christianity is phony, and probably all religion. Think of the fiction created around the Kennedy assassination, one of the friends said. It’s pretty much the same for Christianity.
The OT, according to John (Jesus), is a book that sells fear and guilt, the NT teaches good ethics- all of it put into his mouth by his followers. Fairytales, all of it. All of the colleagues basically agree with him- it’s all nonsense, fairytales, fiction created to trick everyone. Edith, the one who is clearly Christian, is still offended, but no one really cares at this point.
He then suddenly tells them all he was simply telling a story he created. They’re all glad he’s not insane, but the one woman who is closest to him (admitted she loved him early in the film) knows he’s lying now and really is jesus. The psychiatrist they called in to see him overhears information he wasn’t supposed to hear. There’s a twist there, but I won’t give it away.
A good idea that took an anti-Christian tone out of nowhere. That turned the film into a silly, offensive mess. It sounded like the director got ahold of some Jesus Seminar material, decided he didn’t care for Christianity, then decided to make a film mocking the religion. I’ve no idea what the writer/directors were thinking, but this was just a complete joke in the end.
The bad thing- there was little to like about the film, even without the sudden turn into atheist-wet-dream-land and Christianity mocking. The way it was done, these people pondering absurd ideas he mentions about being a caveman who is 14, 000 years old is all well and good, but when he starts on Christianity, it’s like a closed-door meeting to an atheist convention. Bashing Christianity 101. It could have been pulled off well and interestingly, maybe even thought-provoking, but the tone, the way the characters suddenly acted, it just seemed like an act in mocking religion and attacking it and those who folllow it.
Biggest problem was- it just wasn’t interesting. He started with an interesting dialogue, and it felt sort of like the Fox series NEW AMSTERDAM, but it quickly got tedious and boring. Where a show like New Amsterdam takes the idea of a man being alive so long and filling it with interesting stories of the past, this movie just basically said “why is it so hard to believe?” It was a rundown of some vague historical facts then onto an extended attack on Christianity as portrayed in the Bible. The characters were semi-interesting, but none of them were really fleshed out, so that didn’t add to anything. Even without the Christianity stuff, it was still a boring movie that felt like it dragged on. If you have a one setting story where it’s all just talk, you better make sure the talk is very entertaining or else you’re screwed from the word “go.”
I’m no wimp, I can’t listen to people bash ideas I hold sacred and sometimes be entertained by it, but this was just written so poorly and handled so badly that this would have been impossible for me. In a better writer’s hand, in a tone that wasn’t so demeaning and rude, it may have been a decent flick. In the end it was sort of like a low budget Davinci’s Code without any action and all taking place in one setting.
RATING: 2/10
