By Tom Kington
An organ of the Vatican has slammed the new
"Star Wars" film as a thorough disappointment because its villains are
not sufficiently evil.
The Vatican's daily newspaper,
L'Osservatore Romano, has given a dismal review to "Star Wars: The Force
Awakens," even as it breaks box-office records.
While the Vatican might have been expected to sing the praises of
any "Star Wars" film, given the series' depictions of the battle between
good and evil, the latest installment, directed by J.J. Abrams, drops the ball on sheer badness with a crop of unconvincing villains, the non-bylined review claims.
"The
new director's set-up fails most spectacularly in its representation of
evil, meaning the negative characters," according to the review. "Darth
Vader and above all the Emperor Palpatine were two of the most
efficient villains in that genre of American cinema."
This time around, the villains are more insipid than devilish, the paper adds.
"The
counterpart of Darth Vader, Kylo Ren, wears a mask merely to emulate
his predecessor, while the character who needs to substitute the emperor
Palpatine as the incarnation of supreme evil represents the most
serious defect of the film," it wrote. "Without revealing anything about
the character, all we will say is that it is the clumsiest and tackiest
result you can obtain from computer graphics."
Amid a torrent of
positive reviews for "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," which praise the
film's old-fashioned sense of adventure, a handful of critics have
complained it is a thinly disguised recycling of the original "Star
Wars" movies.
In that vein, The Vatican's newspaper agrees, calling the film
"more reboot than sequel." For good measure it adds, "Not a classy
reboot however, like Nolan's Batman, but an update twisted to suit
today's tastes and a public more accustomed to sitting in front of a
computer than in a cinema."
Sticking the knife in further, the
review adds, "Abrams' direction is in fact modelled on the sloppiest
current action films derived from the world of videogames."
"The
only merit of J.J. Abrams film is to show, by contrast, how the
direction of the previous films was elegant, balanced and above all
appropriate."
L'Osservatore Romano, has first published in 1861,
has built a name for lively film reviews since its editor was told to
spice up the paper in 2007 by then-Pope Benedict.
Since
then, the paper has interspersed its reports on papal Masses and synods
with articles about Bob Dylan and a look back at films including "The
Blues Brothers."
Not all its film reviews are as tough as the one
on the new "Star Wars" installment. In 2012, the paper raved about the
007 film "Skyfall," even lauding the "extremely beautiful Bond girls."
This
year, it described futuristic road movie "Mad Max, Fury Road" as "a
real, true masterpiece." On the other hand, it slammed Ridley Scott's
"Exodus: Gods and Kings," saying it added nothing new to the biblical
story except a welter of special effects. LA Times
Note: Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship
hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light
with darkness? 2 Corinthians 6:14 Biblehub
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