Aim higher

Since when did mediocrity become a good thing?

I haven’t seen this yet…and I don’t know if I want to after reading multiple reviews on Prince Caspian.

Dale and Jonalyn were extremely disappointed with the film. Christianity Today also found it wanting.

Jonalyn says:

I’d recommend not seeing it on the big screen. I feel we might be able to vote loudly enough with our pocketbooks so the makers, producers, writers, Disney, Walden and especially Douglas Greshem (C.S. Lewis’ stepson whom I’m afraid doesn’t really get his stepfather’s imaginative world) see that Christians won’t be pandered to with poor movies (no matter how great their original sources were no matter how much of a Christian worldview they used to espouse).

Dale says,

How about we get the word out to not pay to watch this movie so they stop deconstructing Narnia for us! Evangelicals decry postmodernism but we pay for it to be done to our best stories. Brilliant!

Referring to the first film, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Dale says,

Narnia offered a great hope for today’s culture to actually see what a Christian (and Western) worldview means. Instead, we recieved a child-centered false rendition of the classic which, to borrow from Sayers, “pared the claws” of the great Lion. The hero was reduced and our imaginations were betrayed.

You can read Dale’s review of the first film here:

The following reviewer seems to reluctantly endorse this as a mediocre, “it’ll do” kind of film. Notice the words he chooses “reasonably,” “oh well,” “may satisfy”.

The Christianity Today Review:

But on a summer-popcorn-movie level, it all works. Prince Caspian is a reasonably enjoyable and diverting bit of entertainment, and it may satisfy people who have been waiting for a worthy successor to the movie version of The Lord of the Rings but felt the previous Narnia movie wasn’t quite it. And if it lacks Lewis’ message, oh well, with any luck, it will turn people on to the book, which is where the real magic lies.

Hardly life changing or inspiring. Why waste my time on something that loses the original meaning? More on Caspian here. These reviews will send me back to the original books. So the message of the reviewer below is if you want to satisfy your sweet tooth for movies…just see it, it works, even though it’s terrible.

I’m not convinced that I must support mediocrity.

Our God is a God of excellence and creativity. Aim higher.