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Dogma |
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But is it any good as a film? To the scores. (Click here to see these categories explained.)
This movie was a lot better than it was enjoyable, if you take my meaning. It's entertaining, it's educational, and it's frequently funny, but it's also very long and tedious at times, as the plot labors along trying to make message statements and work in every bit of catechism and biblical discussion and instruction. The catechism is largely accomplished through metaphor and object lessons, and the occasional scriptural lectures and discussions are worked in pretty smoothly, but the film does feel like a very alternative Sunday School, at times. Watching Dogma was an interesting experience for me, since I was not raised a Christian, and while I've educated myself a fair amount about religion, I have not delved into the detailed minutia of Christian mythology. Therefore, many of the points of debate, plot intricacies, and Biblical characters in Dogma were unfamiliar to me, and the ones I had heard of were just fictional things in a famous old book, but one that I don't put any special meaning on. I basically take the movie as inventive fantasy, set in the real world, where demons and angels and Seraphim and 2000 year-dead Apostles and clueless prophets and others roam wild. The viewing experience for you will be much different, if your religious beliefs and childhood instruction are different than mine. Malaya (my girlfriend) was raised Catholic and though she's pretty much outgrown that belief system, lots of the stuff in Dogma reminded her of childhood lessons, and she felt a much more personal connection to the film than I ever could. Which doesn't mean she liked it more or less than me (I haven't heard her review.) but that it worked on a very different level for her than it did for me. Overall, the movie received good reviews. It's tally on Rotten Tomatoes is 66%, with 70/106 positive reviews. Since I don't have the religious background to explain the plot succinctly, I'll just quote a critic who can. Ebert, for example, was raised Catholic. He gave Dogma 3.5 stars, and concludes his review with:
On the other extreme you'll find Mr. CAP Alerts, who wrote a very long and somewhat rambling review of Dogma in which he rejects just about every single thing that most modern religious people enjoy in the movie.
I suppose we've got to give Mr. CAP credit here; he's consistent in his total inflexibility. In his world the bible is perfect and infallible and the ultimate truth, and it doesn't matter if almost every other Christian alive finds much of it nonsense and contradictory and needs to look at their faith in another way to keep it relevant in the modern era. They're wrong, he's right, and a film like Dogma that so many Christians enjoy and feel their faith strengthened by is bad, since he thinks it's bad. Of course he's an idiot in our eyes, but you've got to admire his determination to remain an idiot, no matter what everyone else thinks.
Overall, Dogma didn't give me any lasting enlightenment, other than reminding me of how amusingly wacky Christian mythology is when you really get into the details of things like plenary indulgences. It's not a very good movie either; the tone is often forced, the jokes usually fall flat, it's too long and meandering in places, and a lot of the physical details are absurd. It's very creative though, and interesting in the way obscure bits of Biblical theory are worked into the modern day fable, so it gets intangible bonus points and a higher overall score than it really deserves just in terms of how enjoyable it is to watch. |
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