Hello!
Yes, it has been forever since I have blogged and though I have thought about blogging many times I somehow lacked the time, patience or inspiration to do so. So, what is it that has me sitting here ready and inspired to write? Well, that is easy, Pirates of the Caribbean On Stranger Tides.
With all the things going on in my life it strikes me as odd and even kind of sad that a movie is what has me writing again, but it is true. I also realize that this movie has been out only a few days and so I will try not to spoil too much during this post.
The movie starts of with plenty of action and Jack Sparrow, both of which I love. Jack just has this amazing attitude of "Everything is gonna work out". It doesn't matter what kind of scrape or situation he is in he never seems to get discouraged. I love and admire that about his character. To me he almost embodies Mathew 6:25-27“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?"
Could you imagine how much stress, worry and anxiety would be alleviated if we could all trust in God enough to have a Captain Jack Sparrow attitude towards life? It would be wonderful! But notice how Jack doesn't just sit around and wait to be rescued either, instead he waits for the opportunities that God gives him and then he takes full advantage of those open doors to flip the situation around. So trusting in God does not mean that we don't have to work or take advantage/walk through the open doors that God gives us.
So, the movie goes on for awhile and we are introduced to new characters and reunited with old ones. It's entertaining and I am just sitting back and passively enjoying myself until we are introduced to Philip, the missionary. Immediately sit up a little straighter in my chair. I have just gone from a passive watcher to an active participant. First off I am very skeptical of any character who Hollywood portrays as "religious". They, having almost no knowledge of God themselves, are unwittingly or perhaps all to wittingly portrayed in an offensive way. So, I had little hopes for this character to be any different.
At first, he isn't so bad. He's a little annoying but other than that he's ok. As you know, the people in the movies are searching for the Fountain of Youth and apparently, there is a ritual that they must perform in order to gain the fountain's benefits. One of the requirements is a mermaid's tear. Well, from the trailer we know that they catch a mermaid and Philip takes a liking to her. That's all fine and dandy as he is the only one who shows any compassion or concern for the mermaids life as well as the life of all the characters. So, I'm thinking "Ok not so bad. I've seen worse renditions of Christians in movies." But then comes the last scene with Philip, who is injured, talking to the mermaid. He tells her that he was lost and searching for something and how his faith was supposed to be strengthened by his journey but now there is only her. I did not like that and I cringed visibly at that moment. To have him come all this way as a character only at the end to abandon his faith for the mermaid. I mean his faith would have to be pretty small for him to totally discard it and for her to become the thing that he believes in. I just hate how Hollywood portrays Christians. They are always weak and annoying or worse, at the end of the movie, in order for their character to “grow”, they end up growing beyond their faith and it becomes radically altered in a worldly way or left behind completely. So, needless to say I was disappointed in the missionary's character.
I did perhaps think though that I was being a bit too hard on him in the fact that there are millions of people who start out on fire for God and then slowly let something in this life become more important to them than God. Whether it is a mate, money, power, or things and I am fact have been guilty of that many times. So while most people were gushing about how romantic the last scene was and how they adored the new couple I sat and grieved.
Now for my favorite part of the movie (WARNING SPOILER AHEAD)
So the whole movie is about three groups of people trying to get to the Fountain of Youth.
1) The Pirates - led by Blackbeard and Jack
2) The English - led by Barbosa
3) The Spanish - Which is led by an unnamed character
So when the Pirates and the English come at the fountain of youth and they start fighting over it. All of a sudden the Spanish arrive and the other two are vastly outnumbered and outgunned. There are a few tense moments of silence before the Spanish Captain finally orders that the fountain be destroyed! Everyone in the audience was all "Huh?" and as the were destroying it the Captain shouted that the fountain was being destroyed because they were trusting in the fountain for something (eternal life) that was a thing that only God could give them. I almost let out a "Woot!" from my seat in the theater but contained myself. The whole scene with the Spanish was great but that made it awesome!
END SPOILER
All in all it was an ok movie. I will see it again but noting really compares to the first one.
