Great Review of a Thoughtful Movie

Whoever left this review (greatflicks)on the front page did a masterful job!

I just saw The Genesis Code this afternoon after a friend told me about it and it's one of my favorite movies of the past year. Anyone knows going in this is not purely for entertainment: the movie has a message that tackles some very difficult life decisions many of us suddenly have to face, and also takes on some very loaded religious/philosophical questions about where we come from.

When a movie has a message and tackles big subjects instead of claiming to be pure entertainment, of course it takes a big risk because there are bound to be people who strongly disagree with that message. A recent Gallup poll on God and evolution gave three choices and found 39% of Americans believe humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life but God guided the process, 40% believe God created human beings pretty much in their present form in the past 10,000 years or so, and 16% believe humans evolved over millions of years and God played no part. Needless to say, an overwhelming majority of the really negative reviews here come either from the 16% who believe God played no part, or else a handful of negative reviews from people who hate the movie because they take the position no "real" Christian could possibly believe that humans evolved over millions of years. The no-God and no-scientific evidence negative reviewers actually have a lot in common - both take a no-compromise position and pretend they can speak for all Christians and all Americans, when they don't. Thankfully we have The Genesis Code which is a movie for the rest of us who don't outright reject the Bible and don't outright reject scientific evidence either.

When I take a look at what's available to rent on red box it seems a third of the movies portray a world that offers convenient excuses to shoot at other people. An anthropologist from Mars who studied the U.S. based on our movies would think we get shot at every day on our way to work or checking out at the grocery store, but that cancer was extremely rare and unusual. Do any of these negative reviewers offer similarly scathing reviews of all these other movies for being superficial? Stacks of movies that cheapen human life aren't criticized - the stock answer is hey, if you don't want to watch violence don't rent them. But if someone comes out with just one new and refreshing movie that examines the inescapable pain and hard decisions that can be part of watching a loved one die, or the pressures to compromise your beliefs and ideals and values to advance your career, then people come out firing away with guns blazing. How sad.

Well, my answer to the negative reviewers of The Genesis Code is the same answer others offer for the stacks of movies with nothing but cheap violence. Hey, if you don't want to see a movie with Christian viewpoints on life's tragedies and a thought-provoking exploration of how much science and faith both agree on our origins, there's a simple answer: don't watch it!