Making Prime Work VIII

Part One: Saints and Soldiers

Call me silly, but I love a good war movie. And Saints and Soldiers is a good war movie. Because it’s not a war movie – the big one with the generals and the tanks and battles. It’s five guys – sometimes six – and, toward the end, a lot fewer. They don’t get the big picture. They’re just trying to stay alive. And mostly, they don’t. Because this is a war movie.

What we witness is a little tragedy which is part of a larger tragedy which was part of what’s now been called The Good War.

It does not glory in war. It makes war look intimate, personal, and ugly.

And, yes, it is one of those films made by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But it doesn’t drip Mormon.

It does drip with themes of love, and camaraderie, and a little bit of redemption.

Most underrated thing about this movie? The musical score. There are times the score mixes choral arrangements with an eerie chirping, like out-of-tune crickets, which adds to the overall atmosphere of dread. And there’s plenty of dread here. It’s not an overall feel-good movie in that Private Ryan is saved. There are bigger themes here, which always make a good movie great.


The film feels a little off only in one spot -- Kirby Heyborne's British accent. He's not Dick van Dyke level, but it hurts a bit.

Part Two: West and Ward, No!

I don’t know what I expected out of “Batman: Return of the Caped Crusaders.” Maybe Adam West and Burt Ward didn’t know either.

Well, I do know I expected better.

First of all, the baddies tied up a band in a broom closet and took their place on a TV show. And tied up some idiot teenagers in confetti. That’s all they did and Commissioner Gordon ACTIVATES THE BAT-SIGNAL and the Caped Crusaders go into full Bat-Mode to go after the baddies, after introducing each one of them to the viewing audience.

I guess it’s a nod to folks who liked the ‘60s Batman TV show, but that’s about it.

And an atomic energy laboratory opens a new wing dedicated to  . . . lunar eclipses? Maybe they explain the significance. . .

No, they really don't. They went on from plot device to plot device, starting things and not really ending them. Until the movie itself ended.