Review of Agora (2009) by Jesse O — 12 Jan 2011

This movie is pretty damn good but it's sort of brought down by an inconsistent tone and some melodrama near the end. Other than that it's a hell of a movie, even if the dialogue is sort of weak.

The thing with the movie is that it's sort of a see-saw. The pagans attack the christians, the christians attack the pagans, the pagans are ousted, then the christians attack the Jews and the Jews retaliate against the christians.

And then the Jews are also ousted. While all of this is going on then you have Hypatia trying to figure out if the earth is the center of the universe and how it rotates. Ptolemy and heliocentric themes are explored, and it just never really seemed to click, it was like 2 different movies in one, where occasionally some characters would cross into each other's movies, and like I said, there's never a real consistent tone throughout the movie.

At times it's a SCATHING~! attack on christianity and at other times it's philosophical movie with interesting and noble ideas. But I really liked the presentation of the movie, that aspect of it was great and the story was strong as well.

I think also part of the problem is that this movie came about 60 years too late. If this movie had come out in 50s when there were a bunch of religious epics, it would have been a HYOOGE success. Also being about as anti-religion as you can get, I certainly appreciated the ATTACK on christianity (and just all religions in general).

I just find the entire idea of religion absurd. We have enough to deal with laws from governments and you expect ME to follow some outdated book that was written THOUSANDS of years ago under the guise that it's actually the word of god? Fuck all that bullshit.

The bible said not to eat shellfish and pork...because at the time it was written PORK AND SHELLFISH WERE POISONOUS!!!! Everything in the bible is outdated, yet people still live their lives according to this book.

That's just absurd. Another thing, it also says in the bible that men cannot wear women's clothing and vice versa. Doing so, it says, is an abomination unto the lord. LULZ~! I'm sure there's a lot of nice things in the bible, but the people who still use it as a tool to live their lives by, then that's just sad.

And again, I have no problem with PEOPLE who practice christianity, I just have a problem with the close-mindedness of some christians. A lot of my friends are christians...believe it or not. Another problem I have is these hardcore christians who defend the bible and god like everything about their religion is perfect.

Women were BURNT on the SUSPICION of being witches. They didn't even need to have PROOF, if they suspected you of being a witch you were fucked. And don't get me started on the catholics. Two words: child rapists.

So yea, it makes me happy when movies try to criticize what's wrong about religion and it makes me EVEN doubly happy when these religious groups start complaining because it's just great irony.

..it's just great fucking irony. I loathe religion I really do. But yea this movie's pretty good, the technical aspects of the movie are fantastic, unfortunately the movie never really seems to live up to its potential nor do they seem to do the character of Hypatia justice, which is unfortunate because she sounds like an extraordinary person.

But overall it's pretty good all things considered.