BEFORE: From a tricky Devil to an angry God - and as I approach the end of the chain, let's discuss the end of the world, shall we?
The ubiquitous J.T. Walsh from "Needful Things" was also in "Sling Blade" with Lucas Black (last seen in "Friday Night Lights"), who appears tonight, all growed up.
THE PLOT: A group of strangers fight for the welfare of humanity.
AFTER: This starts out like a premise from "Twilight Zone" - a group of strangers in a remote roadside diner just before Christmas, who suddenly lose TV, radio, phone - all contact with the outside world.
Hmm, Dec. 24, a desert setting, and a very pregnant unwed mother? It starts to seem sort of biblically familiar. But when a couple of plagues and the angel/demons show up, the diner's patrons start to realize that the chapter at the other end of the New Testament might be more relevant.
Then a rogue angel shows up, and makes some of the same salient points about religion that I discussed yesterday. Good news is, God exists. Bad news is, he's kind of pissed off. Ready to scrap this whole humanity experiment and start over. Well, we gave it a good run, but I guess we just disappointed God in the end (or, did he disappoint us?).
Either way, it's up to a few stragglers to defend the diner and allow the child to be born, because apparently history repeats itself. This means the film mostly deteriorates into a shoot-em-up, and I kind of wish it had stuck to the philosophical stuff.
NITPICK POINT: If God really lost his faith in humanity, and felt there was no point in saving the world, why even allow the possibility of a savior being born? Isn't God, like, infallible or something? So how can there be a defect in his wise and wonderful plan? For that matter, why create angels (or humans) that disobey His rules? Damn, it's like I'm back in Sunday school again, asking tricky questions.
Also starring Paul Bettany (last seen in "The Tourist"), Dennis Quaid (last seen in "Suspect"), Kate Walsh (last seen in "Kicking & Screaming"), Charles S. Dutton (last seen in "A Time to Kill"), Tyrese Gibson, and Kevin Durand (last seen as the Blob in "X-Men Origins: Wolverine").
RATING: 6 out of 10 highway maps
SPOOK-O-METER: 8 out of 10, some really creepy demonic characters in this one.
PROGRAMMING NOTE: I've got to suspend the project for another few days, since New York Comic-Con starts tomorrow, and I've got to be up bright and early to load a van. I maybe working long hours at the convention, and I'll be pretty tired, so the easiest thing is to finish the chain by watching the last two movies early next week. Now I'm sorry that I took that week off in September, since I apparently miscalculated the number of days I'd have before Comic-Con.
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