The Heart Of The Hangover

Have you ever found profoundly real biblical truths in places that you would never think to look for them? For example, in a movie, about four men, who are having a bachelor party weekend of drinking, drugs and debauchery..........twice. Yep, you guessed it, (at least, I am hoping you are getting good at guessing this kinda stuff by now) the movies I am talking about are The Hangover and its sequel, which is cleverly titled, The Hangover 2

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Ok, so here it is in a nut shell, the real question that these two movies look at is, "Why do these men do the things they do?". Now most people would just look at the obvious answer, and say they did all those crazy things because of the drugs that they had taken, just to recap for those who might not remember, (or for those much more Godly people then me who skipped it all together) here is a quick list of some of the things that the Hangover boys did. They, stole a cop car, locked a man in a trunk, stole a Tiger from Mike Tyson and a Monkey from some drug dealers, make various bets including daring Stu the dentist to pull out his own tooth, cause a riot, marry an "escort" who leaves her baby with them, have sex with an anatomically incorrect prostitute, kidnap a monk who has taken a vow of silence, get a face tattoo and do a whack load of drugs. That is just a few things the guys do over the two movies, but was it the drugs that caused all this behavior?

Stu, the self tooth extracting dentist, comes to the conclusion at the end of the second movie that he is not what he always thought he was. Instead of being a normal middle class dentist, he is really a wild man, and he states, "There is a demon inside of me!". But on this point, I completely disagree with Stu. It is not demon possession that caused the boys to do all these crazy things, and it is not really even the drugs that they take, although I am sure that helped relieve them of some of the inhibitions, but why they really do launch head first in to so much sin and crime is simple, their hearts wanted them too.

Now here is where this movie gets really theological. All the guys bad behavior comes directly from their hearts, and there is this little book called, The Bible, that tells you why, and in two different places no less. First

in the book of Matthew, (which is the first book in the New Testament, in case you were going to go look it up and wanted a little help) Chapter 15, Verse 19* which says, "For from your heart come the evil ideas which lead you to kill, commit adultery, and do other immoral things; to rob, lie, and slander others.". The second is in the book of Mark, Chapter 7, Verses 21 to 23, (you can find that one yourself. What, do I have to do everything for you?) which says, "For from the inside, from your heart, come the evil ideas which lead you to do immoral things, to rob, kill, commit adultery, be greedy, and do all sorts of evil things; deceit, indecency, jealousy, slander, pride, and folly— all these evil things come from inside you and make you unclean.”. Now when Jesus** was saying these things, it was due to the fact that the Jews were constantly talking about all the things that can defile them, and Jesus pointed out that no matter what type of food a person ate, it could not be as bad as the evil and sin that lurks in the hearts of all mankind.

The heart is the key to it all. We all do bad things, adults, kids, and even teens***, and many times when we look back, we are not sure why we did them. Well, look at your heart and you will find the answer. It is funny, cause most often you hear people say to follow

you heart, but I am not actually sure that is good advice, cause as Jesus points out, I don't think your heart necessarily has your best interest at, well, heart, to use the expression. And this brings us back to the Hangover movies, where the guys do all those bad things, and like I said, everyone looks at the drugs, but the heart is the real culprit. Why would they do all that stuff? Cause their hearts told them too, and they listened, sure, the drugs maybe made them hear their hearts clearer, but it was their hearts none the less that did all the directing. So remember, you can find Jesus stuff in the most unlikely places, so keep your eyes open, cause biblical truths are like boxes of chocolates, you never know if you are going to bite into the good ones, or one of the cherry ones, or something like that anyway. So until next time, guard your hearts, especially in video games, and I'll blog at you later.

*I am using The Good News Translation for both passages, so I just saved you from having to guess, aren't I nice, don't you just want to send me some money, thanks.
**I would tell you who Jesus is, but I am going to give you some credit that since you are reading this on the internet that you should at least know who Jesus is, even if you don't know him personally.
***Yeah, even teens, if you can believe such a thing.

The Greatest Trick: Satan In Film

One of my favorite movie quotes is spoken in my number 4 movie of all time, the Usual Suspects, where Verbal Kint states that, "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was convincing the world he doesn't exists" and quite often, most of the world does just that. This point was driven home to me by a co-worker at my bookstore

This is probably my favorite Devil picture ever!

 job when I was in my early twenties. I was sitting in the back room of the store on my break, reading my Bible, when my co-worker, (a very cute smart busty girl named Darlene that I totally would have had a crush on if I was not already taken by my beautiful girlfriend at the time Bethany, who later became my wife*) saw me reading and struck up a conversation about God, (you would be amazed how many times that happens, they usually open with the line, "I am not really religious" to which I reply, "Neither am I", which messes them up every time) and after talking for a few moments she mentioned something about the existence of evil and when I mentioned Satan she said, "You don't actually believe in the devil do you, that is just silly.", Verbal Kint would have been proud. Now as weird as it may seem, although the devil has done a good job convincing most of the world that he is just a myth, it is the exact opposite for the people in Hollywood, cause they seem to have a firm belief in the

This is not really the Devil I am talking about.

devil, or, at least that the devil sells movie tickets. With that, I thought I would talk about some examples of Satan in film. Now as opposed to my Christ In Film post where Jesus is embodied in characters from a film, in this case, we are looking at movies that actually have Satan as an actual main character in the movie. Now before continuing I will say this, I am not endorsing any of these movies**, I am just using them as examples. So without further reminiscing about cute bookstore girls, onto the films.

So the other night I watched a movie (I know, me, watch a movie, that never happens) called Devil, and that's what sparked the whole, "let's do a post about the devil in film" thing, so here is a quick recap about Devil. Devil is story about 5 annoying strangers that become trapped in an express elevator that mysteriously has stopped. The building security guards can see the people in the elevator on their monitors, and can talk to them, but the passengers

No, I am telling you, it was her who farted!

 can not talk back to them, and it is at this time that lights go out and a quick flash of what looks like an evil face flashes across the monitor, and when the lights come back on one of the passengers is bleeding with what looks like bite marks on her back. From there, everybody starts mistrusting everybody else, cops are called, (they were actually already there, because that is the way M. Night wrote it, how convenient) while one security guard recounts being told tales as a child of Satan taking human form and messing with a selected group of individuals before he kills them in terrible ways and whisks*** them off to hell. Then the lights go out again and the first annoying passenger dies somehow. From there the lights go out a bunch more times and more annoying passengers die and the viewers get to play the fun game, "Which One Of The Annoying Passengers In The Elevator Is Satan"

Next on the list is a movie called Bedazzled, where Satan is an attractive woman who offers a deal to a guy down on his luck.

Basically Satan tells the guy that she will grant him a whole bunch of wishes, to become less of a schmuck by making him into different people. This seems great at first, the only problem is that every time a wish is granted, there is always a catch, something that makes the guy take the wish back. For example, he wanted to have power, so she made him a powerful man, that was also a drug kingpin, he also wanted to be cultured, so she made him smart and well read, but also gay, which sucks cause the main reason he was doing all of this was to get the attention of a girl. Oh that tricky devil, it just shows you can never trust the Devil, no matter how good looking or big he makes his boobs (that is possibly one of the weirdest sentences I have ever written).

Last on my list is the freakiest Satan movie that I have ever seen.

The Devils Advocate is about a small-town lawyer who is enticed into moving to New York to work for a huge and prestigious law firm. When arriving there with his wife they are treated to the good life, being invited to parties and being put on important cases in the firm, all the while though it is clear that something is not right. Well, that "not right thing" is that the head of the law firm, is actually, Jesus (ha ha ha, tricked you) it is Satan, (Played amazingly by Al

Devil Temper Tantrum

Pacino, but now that I think about it, how cool would it be to see Jesus played by Al Pacino, now that is a movie I would go see) So yeah, Satan is the head of the law firm, and he has some ideas for his small town lawyer friend that are too out there and twisted to talk about here, (plus it would give away too much of the story, and I hate it when someone causally lets slip important movie facts****) and from there it just gets freakier and freakier, (this is one movie that my wife refused to ever see again, cause it gives her the hebegebes) and Pacino yells a lot.

So, there are just three movies were the bad old devil is featured, there are tons more that you could talk about, (especially ones where he comes as a little baby or an evil kid) but here is the whole point of this post. If you have the Devil, and in this I mean Satan, the guy mentioned in the Bible, both new and old testaments, if you have him as one of the main characters in your movies, it actually says something pretty amazing, and most of the time, I think it is something that Hollywood doesn't really think about. What I am talking about is that if you have Satan, as a character, doing the evil things that Satan does, then you are also giving credit to the world view that their is a God, and again, most movies that I have seen are using the biblical Devil here, so it is not just any random god, or multi religion god, but the God who hangs with Jesus. Now to give credit

Whoa, he's totally right, I have done two Satan
movies, I better do a Jesus film quick.Wait a minute.

were it is due, the movie

Devil does actually mention this at the end of the film, so kudos to M. Night on that, and occasionally other films do to, (like the movie Constantine, which is a Devil movie that I totally forgot about until now, hey, that has Keanu Reeves in it to, what is up with Keanu and hanging with the Devil) but generally, most movies that feature Satan as a main character, or even as a behind the scenes character,  miss out on the point that you can't have the guy with the horns without also having the guy with the whole world in his hands. So next time you see a movie that has Satan in it, smile, cause that means that God is getting a shout out too, so take that Hollywood*****, in your face. So that's all for now, so until next time, stay away from elevators with annoying people on them, and take the stairs, it's better for you anyway. Stay safe Internet peoples, wherever you are.

* If you know me personally then you already know I am married to Beth, so I just made you read this footnote for nothing, which means I just wasted 12 seconds of your life, unless you are a fast or slow reader, then the time varies, anyway, ha.
**So Josh, don't try and get your parents to let you see them by using this post as a resource, cause it didn't work last time anyway.

***Whisked, now there is a word that doesn't get used enough, I guess it is because it is usually reserved for rich people, who "whisk" their lady friends off to some romantic getaway, usually a tropical beach, secluded cozy cabin or in some rare really rich people cases, their villa in the south of Ivegottonsofmoneyville. You never hear about people being whisked off to Blockbuster or Home Depot (as stated before in another post, I am not sponsored by anybody, but if either one of these companies want to throw some cash my way, I will promise to find a way to work their name into every new post I do) or whisked off to Oshawa. Maybe we should start a trend, this week, make sure you whisk yourself off to somewhere, the more ordinary the better, although I don't want any emails about people being whisked off to the bathroom, be a little more selective in your choosing ok. then tell me where you whisked to, ok, good, whisk away.

****My wife is kinda notorious for this, heck, she let slip that Darth Vader is Luke's father, and that was even before our kids even knew what Star Wars was, thankfully they were not listening, so we dodged a bullet on that one. Love you honey.

*****Just kidding Hollywood, please keep making movies for me to watch, it was just a joke.

Walk Through Fire, Cause God Is In The Rain: My Baptism Movie Thoughts

As I write this, (which is on Monday morning February the 28th at about 3:00am*, in case you really wanted to know) I am preparing for an upcoming experience that almost all Christians will do, (well, all but those who attend a certain paramilitary church group, which doesn't practice the sacraments). What I am talking about is Baptism. Now for those of you that know me you might be confused, (those who don't know might be confused for other reasons, don't worry, that's normal) cause baptism is usually something that "new" Christians do, and I have been a Christian all my life, so what is the deal you may ask, (you probably didn't, but just play along and pretend you did) well, because I grew up in that earlier mentioned paramilitary church group (I mentioned this in my Jesus Hits Like The Atom Bomb: Wetworks Theology post, check it out if you get a chance) which doesn't baptize, I never got the chance to do it, but my family and I now attend a different church (big shout out to Forest Brook Community Church, represent) and this coming Sunday FBCC is doing their first baptism of the year, and I am standing up before my fellow believers and getting dunked, (it should be EPIC). So, seeing as I relate a lot of life experiences to movies, it made me think about film examples of baptism, even if it was just symbolical and one film jumped out at me right away with two such examples no less. Now if you have been reading my top 20 films of all time list, (and if you haven't then why the heck not, you know you want to, so now you know what you are doing after finishing this post, happy reading) then you know that number 15 belongs to V For Vendetta, and that is the movie that stands out for me when looking at baptism. But first, I will give you a quick little info on baptism. 



This is actually famous guitarist Brian "Head" Welch being baptized in the Jordan River

 

Baptism is a ritual that has been going on since the days of Jesus, and what it is (along with communion, which is breaking bread and drinking wine in remembrance of Jesus broken body and shed blood. These are called "Sacraments" in church language, and they are very important) at its core is an outward sign of an inner change. Now the mechanics of it is that the baptisey, (I don't think that this is actually a word, but I am using it anyway) stands in water that is usually about waist high and has one or two baptisers ask them if they have accepted Jesus as their personal Lord and Saviour. If they say yes they are then lowered into the water backwards and are drowned so they can meet Jesus faster (Just kidding, they only do that to people who say NO) well, actually they are brought back up and everybody cheers and there are lots of hugs for everyone.

Yep, Jesus got baptised too

So here is what it all means. When the baptisey is lowered into the water they are symbolically dying with Christ when he died on the cross, and when they are brought back up they are symbolically raised with Christ too. Water itself is a great symbol, cause it symbolizes life and death, depending on how it is viewed (shout out to my buddy Jim Chen for teaching me all the cool baptism stuff, and for dunking me this coming Sunday). So when you become a Christian, one of the things you do to show your church that you are sincere is getting baptised. It doesn't actually save you, but it is a great expression of being saved, so that is why we do it, (Now I know I said you get fully dunked when you are baptised, but some churches use a few different methods, such as sprinkling water on the head or possibly spraying them with a fire hose set on full, or maybe not that one, but who knows, but they all are means to the same end, so I am making no judgements here in case your church does it differently then mine).

Ok, so that covers baptism, so where the heck does V For Vendetta have a baptism take place you might ask, no matter two of them? Well, let me start by saying that it is more of a symbolic baptism that I am talking about, but all in all it stands for the same thing. Now before I get into this I suggest that if you have not seen V For Vendetta that you check it out, or at least read my thoughts about it in the movie list section. Assuming you already know what it is about, then you should easily get that V is the first baptisey . So here it is, V's baptism, and this is the really cool super cool thelogical thing, because V is not baptized with water, but by fire. Now the reason this rocks pretty hard is that in the bible in The Gospel Of Matthew, Chapter 3, verse 11, John the Baptist says, “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me comes one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire."



V's Baptism with fire.

So if baptism is all about publicly showing an inner change, then I think this fits the bill. Before this happens V is a prisoner, not knowing who he was and having no purpose. But then something happened, and he could no longer stay as he was, he had to change, he had to escape. Thus becoming a new person on the inside, he was reborn through fire, into a completely different person on the outside also. This was his baptism, and just as when baptism was done in biblical times, it signified a new creation, a new birth, and when that type of change happens, it not only effects the person, but those who come into contact with them. Now, onto the second baptism.

Evey when she is first captured, looks afraid, doesn't she.

So if you have seen V For Vendetta, you know that at one point Evey is captured, thrown in a cell, has her head shaved and is tortured, "presumably" all for information about V, and while there she reads a note left by another prisoner named Valeria. The note chronicles her journey of persecution and states that although Valeria has never met Evey, she loves her and warns her to never give up that "ONE INCH" inside that is basically your very soul, they can take everything else, but never give them that. Evey follows the notes advice and when told she was to be executed unless she gave some information about V, she decides that she would rather be, "taken out behind the chemical sheds and shot" and this sparks her baptism. Once she finds this truth, this "ONE INCH" she is a changed person, and in the midst of tears and anger, V says to her,

Evey looking not afraid asking for the chemical shed.

"Listen to me, Evey. This may be the most important moment of your life. Commit to it. They took your parents from you. They took your brother from you. They put you in a cell and took everything they could take except your life. And you believed that was all there was, didn't you? The only thing you had left was your life, but it wasn't, was it? You found something else. In that cell you found something that mattered more to you than life. It was when they threatened to kill you unless you gave them what they wanted... you told them you'd rather die. You faced your death, Evey. You were calm. You were still.Try to feel now what you felt then."



God Is In The Rain



Evey then says she needs air, and going to the roof, stands with her arms stretched out in a massive rainstorm. She stands there drenched and cleansed, in celebration of a change that has happened deep inside, of becoming a new person, living in a freedom that she never knew before. Evey even references back to something Valeria's Grandmother used to tell her, that "God was in the Rain" (Booya for Jesus)  Now if this is not baptism, I'm not sure what is. Yes, it is not baptism into faith in Jesus, but it is the ceremony. They both were changed, and that change was marked by passing through fire for V and water for Evey. It was an outward sign of an inner change, and if you know the rest of the story of V For Vendetta, then you know that their inward changes made the world a different place, because they were acted upon.

So, I am to be baptised this Sunday, and I am totally stoked about it. I even got a tattoo for the occasion, which just happens to be based on a comic book cover from V For Vendetta (coincidence, I think not, well, I guess I should say, I know not, because it is my tattoo and all, but that just sounds to much like, I don't know, so I will stick with the first one). So I will end this post with those two pictures (the tree in my tat is supposed to represent the tree of Gondor from Lord Of The Rings, which in turn is a representation of the cross. See what I did there, I put a cross in my tat, but I geeked it up, aren't I just awesome. Oh, and a big shout out to my inker Tedd, thanks for the amazing work) and if you are in the area on Sunday morning, feel free to come and watch me go under, (and comeback up again, fingers crossed, ha, that is a Jesus joke right there, and I didn't even mean to write it. Awesome) until next time, stay thirsty my friends, catch you on the dunked side.



 

Original V For Vendetta Comic Book Cover Art

My Ink Based On It

*I actually finished writing this at 9:07pm on the same day, it takes me a while to do these things you know, and I do have a job, family, sleep cycle and digestion system that all need maintaining too, so it is kind of a miracle I ever get anything posted sometimes.



Christ In Film

This is probably not the kind of post you think it would be from the title. If you mention Jesus and Film together in the same sentence, usually "The Passion Of The Christ" or "The Gospel Of John", come to mind, but seeing as this is my first movie post on my brand new blog, I thought I would go for something a little more thematic in tone. So, I have tattoos, if you know me then you already know that, but in the off chance you are reading this and have never met me, I had to get the obvious out there so you will understand my thought process a little. You see, I have a philosophy about my ink, and that is, for the most part, they are mainly about two things, 1. Jesus and 2. who I am. So that brings me to Jesus or Christ in film. You see, I have a Batman symbol tattooed on the inside of my arm, and when people ask about my ink and I give them my little spiel, the first thing they point out is my Batman symbol, and say, "how is that about Jesus?" to which I always reply, "are you kidding, Batman is Jesus." So, that said, this is where I am going with this, so without further rambling on my part, here are my top 5 Christ figures in film.

5. Wall*e - I know it may sound silly, that I consider a little animated robot to be a great representation of Jesus, but hear me out. Besides being incredibly cute, Wall*e is also loving, patient, kind, willing to go to amazing lengths to help those in need and in the end, self sacrificing. Put that together and you have Jesus in small robot form, there is also a whole restoration theme you can throw in there too if you are super ambitious, but all in all Wall*e is Christ.

4. Batman - So from my mentioning him earlier, it is pretty clear that I feel Batman belongs on this list. Now as far as superheroes go, there are two main Christ figures that top the list, Superman being one, and almost an easier one in many peoples eyes. You know, with being the all powerful mama loving boy scout helping the old lady across the street do gooder that he is. Yet I think that is exactly the reason I would pick the other choice, Batman, over Superman. Everybody loves Superman, heck he is Superman. On the other hand you have Batman, who is totally human, no powers whatsoever, but has pushed himself to be the best at everything he does, all for the love of his parents and the safety, or "salvation" of everybody else. He does everything possible to save people, even willing to die and in a couple of cases doing so in the comic medium. Yet Batman is often an outcast for what he does, being hated by many in the establishment that he hopes to help, sound familiar. Yep, Batman is a Christ figure. Truth be told, Batman and Superman together are Christ, both fully man and fully god. Superman holds the world on his shoulders (literally)and stands, or floats in this case, before the sun in a crucifix pose (Superman Returns), and Batman places himself between mad men and the innocent to save a whole city, many of which scorn him, all the while facing possible death for his efforts (Batman Begins). So yeah, Batman is Christ.

3. Aragon - Ok, this is kinda a given, seeing as Tolkien was a Christian and all, but for many people, who don't know this, they totally miss how much Christ their is in Aragon, so lets look at some of similarities. Aragon was a king unrecognized by his kingdom, so was Jesus. Aragon didn't have a place to lay his head and call his home, neither did Jesus. Aragon led a small band of men on a mission to save the world, hey, so did Jesus. Aragon slaughtered orcs by the thousands in a sword slashing display of awesomeness, Jesus threw out the money lenders from the temple...ok, I am kind of stretching it on that one, but you get the idea. Then you add in all the great imagery that Tolkien used, such as the symbol for Aragons kingdom was a tree, and that tree was dead until the King returned, at which point it bloomed with life, ahhh ahhh (imaginary elbow nudge) , see Jesus yet. I could say more, but I think it is safe to say the Aragon is Christ.

2. Aslan - Now I know what you are thinking, shouldn't Aslan be number one on this list, he is Jesus in Lion form after all, and it is for that very reason that he is not number one. Let me explain... no there is too much, let me sum up. You see, there is no doubt, Aslan is Jesus, C.S.Lewis admitted it, so when we are talking about Christ in film, he has to be on the list, that is a given, but he is way too over the top obvious to be number one, even people who don't get Jesus understand that Aslan and Jesus are the same, for the most part anyway (I know there is someone out there who disagrees with me and will ask people they know if they understand the Aslan is Jesus thing, and when they find those people who don't get it, they will feel smart and self-righteous, and think I am an idiot for saying other wise. And you know what, your right, sure, some people won't get it at all, but that just means your friends aren't all that smart, and maybe that is why you picked them as friends in the first place, cause that makes you the smart one in the group. God bless you, and your superior little heart) So that is why I can't have the mighty wild lion at the top spot, cause he is a little too "IN YOUR FACE, I AM SOOOO TOTALLY THE CHRIST" that it leaves little room for revelation later on to take place. You know what I mean, when you see a movie and then connect the dots on your own and say to yourself, "Wow self, that character was totally Jesus, those sneaky film people, slipping Christ into a popular movie, I am so smart for realizing that, BOOYA!!!!!". Or, at least that is how it usually goes in my head. So that brings us to the top spot of Jesus in the movies, Christ on film, and that award goes too.

BORAT

Just Kidding

1. Neo - Neo is Christ, end of post. Ok, I will say more. As far as I can see, through all my movie viewing, I have not found a better Christ figure. Now, I will say this, Neo is not Jesus note for note, he does many things that Jesus would never do, maybe if he had a little bracelet that had a catchy saying on it he would of stayed more pure in his Christ likeness, who knows. Anyway, once upon a time there was an awesome movie called THE MATRIX, which came out and blew my mind, and most peoples minds who saw it too. It had everything awesome you could want in a movie. Action, romance, mystery, action, trippy scifi, cool people in leather, action, a spaceship looking thingy, guns, implants (I am talking about the mind jacks, just to be clear here) and in the end, good kicked evils butt so hard it was exploded into tiny screaming pieces. This was all before many of us knew that it was part one of a trilogy, yet even then, people were seeing Jesus and Neo seem to be one and the same, just with kung fu added. Now, at the time, the makers of The Matrix completely denied that Neo was Christ, although they admitted similarities. Then it was announced that this was a trilogy, and the next two movies came out very close to each other, and Bam, Neo was looking more like Christ then ever, and it was then that the Matrix makers (huh, say that 50 times fast) finally came clean and said, "Ok, Neo is Christ, you got us darn it." (I am of course paraphrasing here) So, saying all of this, now lets look at why Neo is so Jesus like. Lets start in his name choice. Neo also spells One if you play with the letters, which is cool and all, but where he secretly yells "I am Jesus!" is in his Matrix name, Mr. Anderson. Most people would not even think about this, but Anderson means "Son of Man" in greek, and what did Jesus call himself often, you guessed it, Son of Man. Then there are all the other things that are way more blatant, such as Neo is a chosen messiah, being the only one capable of fulfilling prophecy, who will save all humankind, and in the very end, the only way he can complete his task is by giving up his own life. If you can't see Jesus by now you probably have never read any part of your bible, in particular the new testament. I could go on, heck, if you want to go really deep there are a bunch of books on the subject of the matrix being our world and Zion being heaven, (that also reminds me, calling the human refuge Zion, nice touch, it didn't help your case in the whole denial thing, but at least you got it right, minus the huge naked cave dancing scene anyway) and how Neo is Christ, so I will leave it here, Neo is the best representation of Christ on film that you can probably show a teenager in any way, so that they will get it. Is it perfect, no, but the "Spirit" of who Christ is shouts out loud and clear, so Neo is Christ, who also knows kung fu, how cool is that.

*Honorable mention goes to Optimus Prime, Luke Skywalker and the kid from Home Alone, just kidding about that last one. Let me know if I missed someone who you think does Jesus proud in movies, and thanks for being able to stay awake long enough to finish this, even if it did take you a couple of tries.