Watercooler Wednesday - Fireproof: An Early Review
(Yeah, I know it’s Thursday. But this is STILL a part of the “Watercooler Wednesday” blog carnival…)
Last Friday, Anna and I were invited to the Fox Theater in Atlanta (along with a lot of other people) to a pre-release screening of Fireproof. The screening was sponsored by the WinShape Foundation.
Most of you will know that Fireproof is the new movie from Sherwood Pictures…the movie making arm of Sherwood Baptist Church in Albany, Georgia. Their last movie was Facing The Giants.
We got there early enough to get some decent seats, and after a few tunes on the Mighty Mo organ, the movie began.
I’m going to have to break my review down into a number of different parts.
First, on a personal level, this was not an “enjoyable” movie. I say that because much of it caused me (as well as Anna) to re-visit the struggles and failures in our own marriage. So it was actually quite painful and sad numerous times.
That being said, I’ll step back from that perspective, and say that Fireproof is a very good movie.
The quality of the filmmaking and the acting is a marked improvement over Facing The Giants (other than Kirk Cameron, all the actors are amateurs…and you can tell. But it’s still better). It’s a well-written story, with a good balance of humor as well as action, and believable characters. And I’ll have to say that my opinion of Cameron as an actor has gone up after seeing his work in this movie. I went in expecting another Facing The Giants, and I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice piece of work.
Now, THAT being said…I’m not a film critic. I like plenty of movies that critics hated, and vice versa. And I’m sure we can expect the critics (both mainstream and Christian) will not give this movie very high marks. One reviewer’s blog I regularly read has already posted that Fireproof shows that Christian movies stink…and he’s only seen the trailer. As I recall, Christianity Today gave Facing The Giants one star out of five, and were inundated with angry “how could you” emails. Well, remember that film critics address the artistic aspect of movies, and the fact is, if you put this up against most of 2008’s releases, artistically it would be near the bottom of the list. It is what it is.
So, bottom line for me: it’s an amazing thing that this movie was created by a Baptist church in Georgia. Good for them, and I think they will continue to get better. Is it the best movie I’ve ever seen? Of course not. But I will be recommending it.
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Did they tell you that the kiss at the end of the movie is Cameron’s wife? They flew her in for that scene. That made it even more enjoyable for me and Dave.
Your right it’s not the best movie, but it has a powerful message and I think they touched on subjects that people don’t like to talk about.