Just got to see this today!

I've been really looking forward to this movie ever since I heard about it a few weeks ago. It looked liked a fun, and really well made Christian movie. It showed in my city tonight, and here's my short review of it.

Keep in mind that I myself is a Filmmaker/Editor and an avid movie and TV watcher. So my standards are a little higher than most. I'm also a Christian, so there's a predisposition to liking Christian movies.

Overall, the movie was fun to watch. I was entertained from beginning to end, and was never bored. The acting was good (not just by Christian movie standards. It was good, period), and the characters were likable. For the most part, the cinematography was nice (more on that later) and it looked like an "actual movie." I say that because a lot of Christian movies I've seen don't feel like real movies, just an attempt at one.

The Christian elements in this movie are actually a lot less in-your-face than I was expecting. Really, this is a movie with its own story to tell and it's not just focused on preaching. In fact, I was surprised how subtle they were. If you're not a Christian, I don't think the fact that this is a Christian film would be reason enough to dislike it. It's pretty universal I think.

The script wasn't the best script ever, but it was good, and did its job. It had some pretty nice twists in there, as well as funny moments (some clever jokes in there that makes you realize that the Filmmakers cared more about entertaining you than preaching to you). Will's character development was solid, and Kemp was a good villain.

With a higher budget and more technical talent, I think the script would make this movie comparable and even better to most Hollywood movies that come out. What I'm trying to say is while this script wouldn't win Oscars, for an Action/Adventure movie, it's solid. I also liked that the love interest character wasn't always just a damsel in distress. She actually did stuff that mattered!

Now for the bad.

The action wasn't good for the most part. Honestly, if this movie had great/fun action scenes, it would be one of my favorite movies this year, but the action was the weakest link for me. When your genre is Action/Adventure, that's a problem.

The action scenes were shot and edited kinda choppy. It didn't flow very well at all. The way they were shot for the most part, you couldn't really tell what was happening. I don't know if they did that to keep a PG rating or what, but it wasn't good. The editing was also choppy. Too many cuts, and sometimes people get hurt but it feels like frames are missing. Sometimes you don't really know what Will did to take someone out.

There are bits and pieces of cool action in there (the chase scene on the roofs is the best of the movie, and a couple sword fights at the end are good too), but it's not consistent. The only thing consistent about the action was that it didn't really entertain, and it was hard to follow.

As an action movie fan, it takes more to get me excited. I feel that just by shooting and editing the action scenes better, it would make a great difference. It wasn't the scale that wasn't good, it's just the presentation.

The music was too over-dramatic throughout the movie. I noticed the music too much. Not because it was so good, but because it was distracting in some scenes. I feel like a lot of scenes would've benefited from subtler music. It worked for some scenes though.

So to recap: Overall, I give this movie a 7/10. I really did think it had a lot going for it, but some of the technical aspects weren't impressive. The pacing was good, and the cinematography was good. But whenever there were action on screen, the quality diminished. Luckily, they had a good script with a fun story and characters (which is more important than action). The acting was good and the main character was easy to root for. He's a pretty charismatic guy.

I'd recommend watching it for sure. I really hope this movie is successful so that we not only get a sequel (they do set that up at the end) but that we also get more Christian movies like this. You can really tell that by the script, genre, and overall design of this movie, the Producers really do care about the story and characters, and not just about "Jesus this, God that."

As I said earlier, even if you're not a Christian I think this is still enjoyable. The Christian themes shouldn't bother you unless you have an extreme disdain for religion.