Millennials posing as 17th Century Jesuit Priests

Rating: 3/10 (18 March 2017)

Jumping right into my criteria for movies:
Do I believe the story?
Absolutely not!
Do I care about the story?
Impossible.
Do I believe the characters?
Even less than I believe the story.
Do I care about the characters?
Not a chance.
I wanted to like "Silence" -- 7.5 on IMDb, Liam Neeson's in it, and parallels have been drawn to "The Mission", right? Scene 1, I was OK. Unfortunately, from the moment I saw the millennials posing with their token superior, arguing their need to rush off to Japan to save their inspiration in some of the most preposterous accents I've heard in cinema, as though they were somehow entitled to make this dangerous journey, I knew the whole movie was on dangerous ground. When they arrive in Japan & meet the clandestine Christians from the local village, they are surprised that the locals, living under iron-fisted feudal Japanese conditions, do not travel around to the nearby villages to share their ideas about Christianity with their fellow countrymen & women -- right, thought I, they'll just grab their Lonely Planet & backpack and take a little tour of the countryside, eh? The best of the ridiculous is when our "Jesuit Padres" are in hiding in the hills & the Driver shouts out, that he can't take being cooped up in their little cabin, hidden away under these conditions any more -- I'm finishing his cry: "I can't take being cooped up in here without my smart phone!"
I was ready to turn the thing off about 20 minutes in, but figured I'd give it a chance to get better -- which seldom happens. I suppose I was waiting for Liam Neeson to come along and save the movie or something. I wasted the next 40 minutes of my life watching & then had an epiphany & left the room around the one hour mark. Who knows? Maybe Mr. Neeson did save the movie. I don't care to find out.
The script is one of the worst I've observed in a very long time for a movie rated 6.5 or above on IMDb. One of the key premises, the invention of some adversarial relationship between "Christian" and "Buddhist" is preposterous. There was no "Christian Brotherhood" just as there was no "Buddhist Brotherhood" in the 17th century. The power brokers of the day used the sects to their advantage, in Europe just as in East Asia. Remember, Queen Elizabeth I lopped off the head of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots. Both Christians, to be sure. There was no "Germany" or "Italy" in the 17th century. Even the two dominant Catholic powers hated each other and required Papal intervention to keep each other somewhat in check. The same thing was going on in Japan, with different power brokers manipulating the different sects of Zen, as well as other non-Buddhist beliefs, if they felt they could do so to advantage, with bribery, corruption, violence, and torture occurring when convenient. "Christian vs. Buddhist" was not the issue of the day. The world wide issue was, anybody who's a threat to a power broker is an adversary, "Anybody vs. Anybody Else".
Parallels to "The Mission"? Give me a break! I don't even recall hearing any musical score in this "Paterson Poseur Goes to Taiwan-posing-as-Japan" -- must be what they mean by "Silence". The only parallels are Liam Neeson and the cinematography. "The Mission" contains things like a compelling story, a great script, a fabulous film score -- and extraordinary acting!
On a slight positive note for "Silence", I did like the cinematography -- I have no objection to the Oscar nomination in that category.. Too bad there were a bunch of play-actors in the movie disrupting the fine cinematography!
I will close this review expressing my bitter disappointment with Adam Driver in 2016. I really enjoyed watching his rise in different supporting roles over the past several years & was hoping to see him shine in a lead role. He was pretentious playing poetry-scribbler, Williams wannabe working stiff Paterson from Paterson, and just silly in Silence.
As for Garfield, I had Hacksaw Ridge on my list of films to see, but I think I'll opt for the orange cat instead. Come to think of it, I've also got a film with Orangey as the star on my list... think I'll watch that and opt out of "Garfield" altogether!