Beware of a family movie that doesn't mention God. Beware of a silly movie no evident motive but to entertain, because it is surely sinister. Beware of a movie that shows a wild imagination. There are subliminal meanings in everything.
There comes a time when you have to say to uber-Christians: "Give it a rest already!"
I saw Free Birds last night. It was a fun, silly movie about two turkeys who time-travel to the first Thanksgiving in order to change the menu, thereby saving the lives of future turkeys. The only political bent that could be noticed was that the voice of the President (who pardons the main character) is definitely a take on Bill Clinton. Anyone seeing any socio-political message in it would have to be one hell of an absorbed individual, bent on an agenda of his own.
Jackson Cuicon of Christianity Today, is one such individual.
I know how I sound when I type the sentence—"The Indian turkeys are happier than the U.S. turkeys so clearly the movie thinks religion is bad." I know it sounds like a classic over-reading of the text, reading anti-Christian rhetoric into a movie that's totally benign just so that you (as reader) and I (as writer) will have something to get angry about.
Then he proceeds to go on (and on and on) about things like:
IMAGERY - This flashback's imagery plays heavily on the image of Paul's visitation on the road to Damascus,
MARX ("religion is a falsehood told out of compassion") and
EXISTENTIALISM ("compassionate atheism").
Yes, it's a classic over-reading of the text, but who the hell reads it like this particular "Christian" reviewer with an apologetic axe to grind?
Sometimes a silly movie is just ... a silly movie. Get over it.
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