Reviews

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. The cinematography was beautiful and it was good to see a movie that doesn't romanticize Che Guevara. My only criticism is that the characters spoke in clichés throughout the movie, making the dialogue somewhat unbelievable and at times irritating.

I saw other reviews criticizing the movie as propaganda and one review that oddly, complained that most of the characters were white, a bizarre complaint considering that most of the people playing the characters are actual Cuban-Americans, and not all white.

As far as the criticisms of propaganda are concerned, likely this is due to the fact that the movie doesn't conform to the popular American left-wing mythology that Che Guevara was some sort of benevolent, revolutionary peasant fighting for The People and that The Wealthy are all evil, selfish, brutes, who deserved to have everything they worked for stolen and "redistributed." Nothing could be further from the truth. Che was a spoiled, upper-class, murderer and thief. The Lost City showed that (and quite frankly it only scratched the surface). Che ended up living the high life on mansions appropriated from The Wealthy. Revolutions aren't started by The People. The People are too busy working and taking care of their families. Revolutions are started by white, upper-middle class, pseudo-intellectuals, who have never dirtied their hands a day in their lives.

Rent The Lost City, if you're interested in seeing another view of Cuban history outside the typical Hollywood version. However, if you don't want your entrenched view of Che and Fidel as a romantic revolutionaries to be disturbed, there's always The Motorcycle Diaries.

Born-again Christianity and good cinema, while not necessarily mutually exclusive, generally aren't seen in the same zip code. People don't go to movies to be preached at. We go to movies because we want, and need good stories. Movies like Amazing Grace, Bella, and Ben-Hur are great stores, great movies, and have positive Christian themes. Unfortunately, a lot evangelical movies tend to be rather ham-fisted and "preachy." To appeal to a wider audience, you have to take into account the fact that most of the audience have foundational assumptions that might not include a Christian worldview. Marriage Retreat doesn't do that.

Of course there will always be people that decide to hate a Christian movie on general principle and spin it by critiquing something else other than the message (which is ultimately what offends them).

Marriage Retreat isn't a bad movie. It's got a reasonably good plot, some decent jokes, and it's nice to sit down and watch something that doesn't have a slew of F-bombs and crass sexual innuendos. Unfortunately, it won't spark much of an interest outside of the young-marrieds group at the local mega church.