Okay, so I watched the movie “The Road” because two very intelligent people highly recommended it to me.
Wow.
And I don’t mean that in a good way.
Here’s the story in a nutshell. The Earth is in the throes of some kind of nuclear winter. Everything is dying; everything is cold and wet. There’s a man traveling down the road with his son. The man occasionally gets philosophical during his voiceover monologues, but mostly the pair forage for food and try not to get eaten by cannibals.
The man talks about God a lot during his bouts of philosophy, but his faith journey is of the fuzzy, Hollywood variety. He wonders about God in the midst of his tragic circumstances, which makes perfect sense, and he draws some conclusions. And he has time to read as he sits by the fire along the road. But read a Bible, or for that matter any book that might contain insight into anybody else’s views of God? Nah, he doesn’t need that.
To say that the movie was a downer would be like saying grass is green in the springtime.
I’m sure there was some kind of deeper metaphor in the movie that I missed. Perhaps (apparently?) it appealed to more sophisticated moviegoers, and admittedly I’m not one of them. I gravitate towards Kung Fu, superheroes, and talking apes. I guess what I am trying to say is that when “The Road II” comes out, I won’t be in line to see it.
“Cowboys and Aliens?” Now that was a great movie, and so were “Captain America” and “The Green Lantern.” They were entertaining, and maybe that was my problem with the other movie. People watch movies for different reasons. So was “The Road” a bad movie, or was I a bad audience member for it? I’ll let you decide.