A grieving man receives a mysterious, personal invitation to meet with God at a place called "The Shack."
TRAILER
STORYLINE
After the abduction and presumed death of Mackenzie Allen Phillips'
youngest daughter, Missy, Mack receives a letter and suspects it is from
God, asking him to return to The Shack where Missy may have been
murdered. After contemplating it, he leaves his home to go to The Shack
for the first time since Missy's abduction and an encounter that will
change his life forever.
REVIEW
The Shack's running time is about 132 minutes, the movie is G rated, in cinemas in Europe by the beginning April, in Asia it was screened already, and is a Drama and Fantasy movie about a man, who lost everything in his life, like what we can see already in the trailer, especially mentioned, when his daughter was kidnapped. The Shack is also a movie, which deals with a lot of religious stuff about God, what is life, love, war, and also points the theory of Adam and Eve, who were living in the paradise made by God. The movie wants to deal with those serious topics, it turns out into a very dramatic religious movie, and I have already at the beginning of the review, that the movie is not good. Why this I will tell you later.
So let's start with the cast:
| Sam Worthington | ... | |
| Octavia Spencer | ... |
Papa
|
| Tim McGraw | ... |
Willie
|
So the main character is Sam Worthington aka Mack, a father who lost eveything in his life, especially the believes and will to still being alive. His character is not convincing, he wants to be a mad and bad guy, his anger wants to come out, but the way he is pretending to be mad, bad, and sad is not good. Even after he got a letter from an unknown person and he gained back the will to do something in his life, he is someone like who is hard to motivate, and go for your goals.
Then we have Octavia Spencer as Papa, which means God here in the movie. She stands for something religious, for something who may have contact and being the bridge to God. She is the person who asks a lot like e.g. who is that person who has the power over us, who is watching us, what is good and bad in life, what is the meaning of being good or bad for you as an individual and what happens if this definition is completely different for the person who is standing next to you. She is also giving us reasons why people are different, and maybe because of this there are wars and conflicts and what is the purpose of God then?
So the movie has a lot interesting points and plots, and so the cast is good and a nice idea, which is a cool setting to talk about these mentioned issues, kinda problems in this world.
The camera is a mixture of cold and warm pictures. Cold and dark when it comes up to the drama which effects the family and Mack, and warm when it comes up to enter the Shack, sunny, warm, and full of love screened scenes. Almost like a paradise or Garden of Eden. Cute and lovely setting of the camera.
Settings are most of the like a Shack and what we expect to find in there.
Music is okay, sometimes a bit too dramatic, sometimes too much over the emotions, and it wants to emphase the mood of Mack, which I did not like a lot.
The movie has no effects.
Now the movie is based on a book, and a lot of people told me already, that they liked it a lot, I did not read the book, and so it is very difficult to compare between the book and the movie. Some people say it changed my life.
But I think do not expect too much from the movie because if I have an imagination of God and what I believe in, and then you watch a movie about this, and then your expectation were not fulfilled, then it is difficult to like the movie or not.
What I like about the movie:
I like the idea of a movie, which is a topic about something what we all believe in, wether it is God or not, wether it is something spiritual or not. We all do not talk about this a lot. So the movie is a good reason to talk about it, and also the relationship between people and what is good or not for you in your life, and here the movie won't give any direction, so we are all for us in our mindset. That is a good idea and topic.
What I did not like about the movie:
It is a religious movie, and the religion the movies comes up with is just one and not all possible choices of religion. The movie is too long, and what it wants to tell us keeps on repeating and repeating all the time. Mack as main character does not convince me in his performance and most of time in main parts it is not convincing when someone is mad.
At the end it is a good movie, but not good as perfect.
For its genre Drama and Fantasy as well as over all rating I give it 4 out of 10 points.
Enjoy it anyway if you are interested in those kinds of topics and have fun watching.
Thank you, bye bye.
