Pleastantly Surprised

Rating: 9/10 (1 January 2008)

Well the basic question here, as it is with all movies, is did this movie tell a good solid story that was also entertaining. YES
I expected this movie to be garbage like most of the movies made in the past 10 years or so but it was entertaining and did indeed tell an interesting story.
I also like that they stayed away from the desaturated movie treatments and kind of went a bit high contrast (my own film-making signature).
I usually don't like movies with a Christian or religious focus (as being a good human being has nothing to do with religion), but this one wasn't really noticeable too much (well except for the lameness at the end before the credits).
I thought the scenes where they were telling the story from the book were fantastic as were the characters.
I didn't like that they mixed the pleasure of sex and intimacy with violent assault. This is a growing trend in movies today as well that I think is as caustic to our society as the 5 minute relationships in movies in the 80's. Where characters were suddenly in love after only having just met someone. I remember how young people back then expected relationships and love to work that way (of course it's their parents fault for not telling them otherwise). But now adults are getting love instructions from movies. These scenes could have been even more charged had they done them right and without the violence.
I've always thought Jim Carrey would do good in a serious film. He has a serious look to his face sometimes. He did a good job in this film as I would have expected.
I've always loved Virginia Madsen. She did a great job as well. She's not in enough movies I think. And she's hot. :) Overall I think the entire cast did a great job and I think the movie had wonderful, deep, rich cinematography. I loved at the end how the writing was appearing real time on things.
Oh yeah, and the dog was cute. :)