bloated, with a message from hell

Rating: 4/10 (14 October 2007)

THis film is really an incredibly long advertisement against smoking cigarettes; but I found it wholly unconvincing, and am puffing away while I write this - delicious! Full-flavored - it satisfies! Which is more than this movie did.
Don't get me wrong - I actually had some fun with this thing's mindless action sequences, which are rather well handled.
But let's be honest: First. Stop spending tens of millions of bucks on comic books. There's way too much money spent on this film, and not enough to cover-up the fact that it is mere B-movie pot-boiler.
And hey, if you're making a B-movie pot-boiler, than it ought to be slick and to the point, with as little dialog as needed. There's nothing more soporific than an over-long B-movie pretending to be "deep" or arty or something.
Finally. Although I recognize that the real fault for it lies with the audiences who admire such mush, I am sick and tired of Hollywood's blasphemous trashing of Christianity, all of which only reminds us - shamefully - that most Americans who claim to be Christian haven't the slightest clue as to what their religion is really all about, despite the fact that many are willing to kill Muslims in the name of a Christ they don't understand, and who must be utterly furious at such vicious mockery of all that he taught.
Let's get one thing very clear - Christianity is NOT about any "battle between good and evil" (that religion is Manicheism, a derivative of ancient Parsi). It is about redemption, mercy, charity, peace. If it isn't, then it has no more claim to our attention than professional wrestling.
The morality of this film is essentially that of professional wrestling.
And just as an afterthought, let's remark that, while the intentional comic relief of the film falls flat, the dramatic moments are just about funny as hell - and come from some writer residing there, no doubt.
Like a highly polished remake of the old Italian Hercules movies, and just about as much fun for the same reasons.