Objectively speaking, this was a very bad movie. Your feelings about it may depend on your own IQ, or possibly just your age and level of life experience, but for me, there was nothing— and I mean absolutely nothing—discussed here that was insightful.
The acting is atrocious across the board, completely lacking in nuance. This is particularly true of Tom Sizemore as the villain. This is mainly a problem of writing and direction, since I've seen some of these actors succeed in other roles. But here, working under a relative novice director with little or no time and budget for the multiple takes needed to really nail a performance, they have little chance.
I agree with the commenters who believe the religious aspects of the movie were insulting. The scene where the seminary student baffles Steven Baldwin by suggesting that faith in the structural integrity of a building is equivalent to faith in god is laugh-out-loud funny. That old chestnut of a fallacy wouldn't have baffled a high-school honors student, let alone a genius.
Like other commenters, I agree that ultimately the film was bound to fail, simply because of its agenda. You can't prove god exists. There is no way, in language, science, or philosophy, that it can be done. Recycling discredited bits of medieval philosophy, and also wrapping an Intelligent Design thesis in sheep's clothing can't change that.
If you're one of the many religious people who happen to also be intelligent, I think you'll be annoyed by the film. If someone is going to argue on your side, you want the top dog in there doing it, not the second and third string. A dose of eloquence, and a reluctance to resort to old Sunday school canards, could have made this a really good movie, engaging for religious and non-religious alike. Didn't happen here, though.
Lastly, the film had no arc, no tension, no frisson. It had nothing to do with saving the world, only with saving Washington, D.C., the loss of which some people might not consider a terrible thing. Seriously though, I think the fact that the writer-director here perceives the loss of an American city as the end of the world says more than anything I can about how overblown, ponderous, and egocentric this exercise was. I give the guy credit for his ambition, but he needs some post-grad learning, or at least a heck of a lot of reading, to effectively succeed in his goals. I have to call this an almost total failure.
The acting is atrocious across the board, completely lacking in nuance. This is particularly true of Tom Sizemore as the villain. This is mainly a problem of writing and direction, since I've seen some of these actors succeed in other roles. But here, working under a relative novice director with little or no time and budget for the multiple takes needed to really nail a performance, they have little chance.
I agree with the commenters who believe the religious aspects of the movie were insulting. The scene where the seminary student baffles Steven Baldwin by suggesting that faith in the structural integrity of a building is equivalent to faith in god is laugh-out-loud funny. That old chestnut of a fallacy wouldn't have baffled a high-school honors student, let alone a genius.
Like other commenters, I agree that ultimately the film was bound to fail, simply because of its agenda. You can't prove god exists. There is no way, in language, science, or philosophy, that it can be done. Recycling discredited bits of medieval philosophy, and also wrapping an Intelligent Design thesis in sheep's clothing can't change that.
If you're one of the many religious people who happen to also be intelligent, I think you'll be annoyed by the film. If someone is going to argue on your side, you want the top dog in there doing it, not the second and third string. A dose of eloquence, and a reluctance to resort to old Sunday school canards, could have made this a really good movie, engaging for religious and non-religious alike. Didn't happen here, though.
Lastly, the film had no arc, no tension, no frisson. It had nothing to do with saving the world, only with saving Washington, D.C., the loss of which some people might not consider a terrible thing. Seriously though, I think the fact that the writer-director here perceives the loss of an American city as the end of the world says more than anything I can about how overblown, ponderous, and egocentric this exercise was. I give the guy credit for his ambition, but he needs some post-grad learning, or at least a heck of a lot of reading, to effectively succeed in his goals. I have to call this an almost total failure.