This was my favorite Peretti novel of all time, but the discrepancies between the book and the movie are not what bothered me. EVERY novel must undergo some re-structuring to work in a 2-hour movie. To Peretti's credit, the idea of Marion being murdered was a good way to start the adaptation.
But that's where the good ideas end.
The plot holes in this movie are large enough to drive a truck through them. The dialogue was so cheesy that I was tempted to mute, and the STORY was so disjointed that I simply covered my face and thought: "One more strike against Christian movies!" 1) If Justin Cantwell's goal was simply to get a victim for his sacrifice, WHY pull the false-Christ routine at all? Why not just snatch some other clueless Marion Jordan? His revenge against Travis for "alerting the authorities" would be a great story by itself, and you could throw in a few "Am I a bad minister?" self-discovery side plots for flavor. But with this script, the purpose in his false-Christ routine is never explained, or even hinted at, which makes the whole story fall flat on its face.
Just so you know, in the book, Cantwell is JUST as deceived as the rest of the crowd. He doesn't believe he's Jesus, but he does believe that the three demonic companions are his "friends", when they're actually using him.
2)The "flying Bible stops the falling knife" trick at the end was just too much cheese, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Christian writers really struggle with Deus Ex Machina in their fiction. There's a good reason for this: miracles DO happen in the life of a Christian, but it's hard to get them on paper in a believable form. The difference is this: a miracle is an **event**, while Deus Ex Machina is a technique used to resolve a plot (God comes in and miraculously saves the hero from certain death, end of story) and it tells you nothing about the journey of the character. If all Christians really meditated on the function of miracles in our own lives, and our own response to them, we would stop using this awful, pointless technique and start writing better stories. Peretti should know better.
3) I'm pretty sure that Washington state has the highest rate of occultic and New Age practitioners in the country. Peretti is simultaneously too familiar with these practices and disdainful of them. A follower of ANY religion believes that he has found Truth, and to mock the practices with the camera (Nancy Barrons' sultry sway down the stairs, or Cantwell's screaming at the fake fence post--and what was THAT all about?) robs the audience of the chance to know these characters. The rest of the country is not as familiar with these practices as Peretti obviously is, so he needs to explain WHY they're false/harmful/ridiculous, or whatever, with his story craft----NOT resort to making them look stupid. It doesn't work.
Peretti's book "Piercing the Darkness" actually led me to Christ, so I may have come to this movie with higher than normal expectations. However, I would like a Christian movie to be AT LEAST as well written as the latest Batman flick. It wasn't. We as Christians have been charged with sharing the greatest story of all time. Maybe if we learned how to tell stories more effectively, we'd do a better job of that.
But that's where the good ideas end.
The plot holes in this movie are large enough to drive a truck through them. The dialogue was so cheesy that I was tempted to mute, and the STORY was so disjointed that I simply covered my face and thought: "One more strike against Christian movies!" 1) If Justin Cantwell's goal was simply to get a victim for his sacrifice, WHY pull the false-Christ routine at all? Why not just snatch some other clueless Marion Jordan? His revenge against Travis for "alerting the authorities" would be a great story by itself, and you could throw in a few "Am I a bad minister?" self-discovery side plots for flavor. But with this script, the purpose in his false-Christ routine is never explained, or even hinted at, which makes the whole story fall flat on its face.
Just so you know, in the book, Cantwell is JUST as deceived as the rest of the crowd. He doesn't believe he's Jesus, but he does believe that the three demonic companions are his "friends", when they're actually using him.
2)The "flying Bible stops the falling knife" trick at the end was just too much cheese, but I shouldn't have been surprised. Christian writers really struggle with Deus Ex Machina in their fiction. There's a good reason for this: miracles DO happen in the life of a Christian, but it's hard to get them on paper in a believable form. The difference is this: a miracle is an **event**, while Deus Ex Machina is a technique used to resolve a plot (God comes in and miraculously saves the hero from certain death, end of story) and it tells you nothing about the journey of the character. If all Christians really meditated on the function of miracles in our own lives, and our own response to them, we would stop using this awful, pointless technique and start writing better stories. Peretti should know better.
3) I'm pretty sure that Washington state has the highest rate of occultic and New Age practitioners in the country. Peretti is simultaneously too familiar with these practices and disdainful of them. A follower of ANY religion believes that he has found Truth, and to mock the practices with the camera (Nancy Barrons' sultry sway down the stairs, or Cantwell's screaming at the fake fence post--and what was THAT all about?) robs the audience of the chance to know these characters. The rest of the country is not as familiar with these practices as Peretti obviously is, so he needs to explain WHY they're false/harmful/ridiculous, or whatever, with his story craft----NOT resort to making them look stupid. It doesn't work.
Peretti's book "Piercing the Darkness" actually led me to Christ, so I may have come to this movie with higher than normal expectations. However, I would like a Christian movie to be AT LEAST as well written as the latest Batman flick. It wasn't. We as Christians have been charged with sharing the greatest story of all time. Maybe if we learned how to tell stories more effectively, we'd do a better job of that.