A critique of the film The Apocalypse of St John

A critique of the film The Apocalypse of St John | Introductory Comments

I just saw the film The Apocalypse of St John on the first day of its release in the United States, about a week and one half ago.

I would say that the film is overall good despite numerous, in my humble opinion and even from church teaching , theological difficulties.

To begin the review, I would like to give some initial, very positive comments on the visual and choreographical aspects of the film, amongst other wonderful visual and theatrical architecture of the project.

Firstly, the effects were incredible; the actor for St John truly looked like Noah, a wise and holy man with a long beard and very old, his hand grasping effectively a wooden staff.

His acting was powerful, and his writing on the scrolls was deep and mystical in the dark and dim cave with the ancient pen and parchment.

I also thought that much of the other acting was very well performed, and the scenes that they showed –the modern catastrophes, both moral spiritual, and in warfare and such—were very appropriately placed to move the audience to the quite serious condition in which our world is finding itself today.

The imagery used to depict the scenes of the various apocalyptic segments, I found astounding and spectacular in the applicable cases.

Especially , the placement of the maps of time , as it were , were visually appealing in illustration and animation, intelligently placed in punctuality during the narration of the various ages that evolve across the different sections of the film. The pictures of personages of these times and/or ancient or older paintings very adequately portrayed the type of spiritual and/or temporal activity of the age, which the same general narrator described for the associated historical movements being traversed.

The sporadic but hard-hitting utterances from the monumental speaker, blessed Fulton Sheen, were perfectly placed, in my humble opinion, like fiery, pungent , and serious ejaculations of the modern crisis!

Now, considering the theology of the film, it gave me great encouragement that I am not the only person who has been pondering the questions of the meaning of salvation history and the book of Revelation, in particular for a Catholic. And this is precisely the case because, like myself for these two decades, the author and film advisors are looking at the book as a splendid panorama of the entire trajectory of the historical Church , from beginning to end, and from different dimensions. In other words , the apocalypse is certainly the subject of much of the meaning thereof.

This is in contrast to most quote-unquote, Catholic, scholars, who view the book of Revelation merely in the first century, which is otherwise known as preterism. There don't seem to be too many Catholic persons or theologians who want to branch away from pagan Rome and the fall of Jerusalem, to any significant extent, as to say, again, apply the book to the near totality of the divine plan in the new age.

I have been, again , pondering these questions for over 20 years myself, and I’m getting close to completing a book which I wish to present for consideration in much the same way in which this person who is the great spearhead of the project, Simon, has done.

From what I understand, after watching the film and listening to his wonderful testimony in the credits, he is the director and presumed leader of the endeavor, and who himself went through a substantial conversion to the Catholic faith, compelling him to a journey to contemplate this great mysterious and elusive scripture of the Bible.

It should be noted that Simon has used help from certain theologians, early church fathers , and even other well-known or notable figures of more modern times. For example, he uses wonderful insights from all the way back to St Augustine and forward to persons like Cardinal Newman and Joseph Pfiefer, amongst others.

As a consequence of this, when I try to go forward with my humble critique of theological elements and opinions of the film, I shall simply choose to say, the film says or claims, this or that, rather than to say, quote on quote, Simon, since that would surely be too personal and place all of the quote-unquote blame on him, when it is a conglomerate effort.

That being said, I can first comment that, interestingly, some of his ideas are similar to mine, but I would say that there are many other places in which it is more or less eisegesis versus exegesis, as well as a significant lack of rigorous theological structure or trajectory to govern or model why the claims are given for each steps of certain sets within the film, such as the letters, the seals, and the trumpets. But the full details of these things will be worked out forthcoming in much more detail in several parts, and this, simply because the space is so large that to put it all together would be so overwhelming that no one would want to read it, much less have the time.

Conclusively, I am summarizing insights here initially into what will now be several articles to go into the different great sections of the book, which is to say also, the film. Towards that end, stay tuned for the further installations in the near future.

God bless!