Sunday, March 12, 2006

Movie Review: Peretti on DVD

The Visitation is one of my favorite Frank Peretti novels; I always thought it was under-rated, more subtle than some of his other works. Anyway, it got made into a movie starring Edward Furlong and Randy Travis, and was just released on DVD.

Let's say at the outset that Christian movies have made a huge leap from the days of the church basement. Scripts, actors, budgets -- they are all better than they used to be. So the problem when reviewing a Christian movie is . . . . what do you compare it to? Not every movie has Narnia's budget or Mel Gibson's personal backing, so those are not fair comparisons.

But to the movie at hand. The Visitation compares favorably to old church movies and to low-budget independent-type films. The subtlety was lost in translation from book to film, as was some of the drama. I do not remember the specifics of the book, so I can't say how close it stuck to the original, but it the movie did seem a bit predictable, and I don't remember the book being that way.

Next up -- the Steve Taylor/Michael W Smith movie.

No comments: