I saw Saved! last night. It was a pretty funny movie, and raised some good points. I know there’s quite a bit of controversy about it being an “anti-Christian” movie, but personally, I saw it more as being anti-hypocrite.
Oh, and Jena Malone just made it that much better ::drools::.
Thoughts?
Oh, and I searched about five times looking to see if there was already a thread on this movie, but I couldn’t find one. If there is, and I’m taking up forum space, just disregard this.
It wasn’t a bad movie, although it got a little preachy near the end.
I was thinking of starting a thread on this one, myself.
I still can’t figure out exactly what I think about this movie. I think the first 2/3 of it are quite enjoyable; the characters are likable and the humor is clever. I like Jenna Malone a lot, and to my surprise I like Macauly Culkin a fair bit, too (I also realized that between this and Party Monster, I’ve seen both of MC’s “comeback” movies so far, yikes). Mandy Moore is… well, Mandy Moore.
The last 1/3 or so of the movie totally lost me. It went from being clever to, as Captain Amazing said, being preachy; the message of the movie turns into heavy-handed glurge about half an hour before the end. And not only that, but it lost any semblence of originality it had and had the most stereotypical Teen Movie ending ever. You know the drill - tons of bad stuff happens to the snotty girl, but it’s okay, because she was mean; characters you haven’t seen since the beginning of the movie pop up out of nowhere; all of the misfits end up happy together; adults realize the errors of their ways; blah, blah, blah.
Also, I think the whole “Ha! They talk about Jesus a lot!” schtick got old after about five minutes, and it’s the source of most of the humor in the movie.
I think I’d have liked it better when I was 15 or something.
I thought Heather Materazzo was totally wasted in a one-dimensional role. She’s done great stuff before. Wish she had this time.
I thought it was OK, but the satire lacked real bite. Jena Malone is way cool though.
I liked it a lot. I agree on the notion that the last 1/3 seemed to fall into cliche movie ending, but otherwise I really liked it.
I would have liked to know what they named the baby.
“I crashed my car into Jesus!”
Oh and I liked Macauley in this waaaay more than I did in “Party Monster.”
The movie was much better than I expected.
The think about the end, to me, is that the Jenna Malone character accepts that there must be a God. But she never questioned the exisitence of God, just whether or not God cared about her. I though Mandy Moore was great. Though her group did remind of the fashion club from the Daria series.
I wouldn’t call the satire cutting edge or anything, but it’s nice to have the people who go “Lord, Lord!” reminded from time to time that Jesus said some pretty harsh shit about them.
Good God, I hated this movie. Went in hoping for a little biting satire and all I got was a a warmed over Election wanna-be with the soul of an after school special.
SPOILERS TO FOLLOW:
The first half hour was pretty enjoyable but it quickly stated popuring on the cliches and gutless follow though.
A short list of grievances: The dialogue was trying to hard to be witty and fell far short 90% of the time.
2 dimensional characters.
Predicatable plot with zero twists.
But my biggest gripes were with the obvious lifting/ influence of “Election”, Alexander Payne’s masterpeice from 1999. Mandy Moore’s character seemed like little more than a watered down evengelical Reese Witherspoon. Perhaps it was my imagination, but even the musical cues seemed lifted from Election!
I could go on more about the flimsy, uncharming relationship between the protagonist’s mom and the pastor, the charmless miscasting of McCalkin or ultimately the gutless, pat, everyone grows-and-learns-a-lesson-in-the-most-obvious-way possible ending. And it’s not that I’m some art-house snob, either. I’m all for happy endings and resolutions. This movie just seemed so unsatisfying in all respects.
Let’s pretend I proofread that a little better. And got Culkin’s name right the first time.
Two more gripes:
The christian band that played the prom played two songs, both of them Replacements songs?! WTF? Talk about heresy.
And the Jewish girl speaking in tongues scene was absolutely cringe-worthy.
Have I mentioned how much I disliked this movie?