Movie Nitpicks - Part 2 (SPOILERS)

This post features my nitpicks about certain movies and contains spoilers for 'Taken 2', 'Son of God', 'Titanic' and the trailer for 'God's Not Dead'.  If you have seen all of these movies, go ahead and read.  If you haven't seen all of these and don't want to know about spoilers, don't read this until later.  If you haven't seen these but you don't care about spoilers, read on.

• Taken 2
  Now since 'Taken 2' is an action thriller, that already means any sense of plausibility is thrown straight out the window.  But even these nitpicks kinda stretch that...
  
  1. In order to determine where exactly he is after he's been kidnapped, Bryan Mills' (Liam Neeson) plan is to call his daughter Kim (Maggie Grace) and have her throw live grenades at various points in Istanbul so that he can time the explosions and determine how far away he is from them.  Because, you know, that certainly wouldn't attract any attention at all....from the authorities, from the villains......
  2. Speaking of Kim, it is revealed early on that she has repeatedly flunked her driver's test and still doesn't have a license.  Yet she's the one behind the wheel during an intense chase scene later on in the movie.  And evidently rather skilled at it...
  3. Now we get to my huge nitpick about the movie, and that is the villain of this movie.  Murad (Rabe Serbedzija) was the father of one of the kidnappers from the previous movie, and while burying his son he swears that he will have revenge against Bryan Mills for killing his son.  Never mind that his son was kidnapping tourists, drugging them, and selling them into sexual slavery....

• Son of God
  I saw this movie a few weeks back.  Instead of a full formal review of this movie, I decided that during Holy Week I will write a piece comparing it to 'The Passion of the Christ'.  So some nitpicks I'll save for that comparison.  
  
  1. Now 'Son of God' does get kudos for showing Jesus smiling and laughing.  Often in other depictions He is seen as serious and stern.  Now sometimes the smiling and laughing is a bit inappropriate at times.  As He is talking about how the temple is going to be destroyed in three days, he is facing a little girl, smiling and poking her.  This moment had me saying 'What?' out loud in the theater.  Thankfully I was the only one in the theater.  I highly doubt that Jesus was smiling and poking a girl as he was saying this rather serious statement.
  2. During his trial with Pontius Pilate, the guards standing outside are being selective of who is let in to watch the trial, shouting "No followers of Jesus here!  You, you, you, not you, you, not you, you...".  Would the guards really have been that selective about who would watch the trial?  Possibly.  But the way it's depicted in the movie is a bit unintentionally comical. 
  3. Malchus (Paul Brightwell) is the servant of the High Priest whose ear was cut off by Peter (Darwin Shaw) during Jesus' arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Jesus heals Malchus' ear....and then Malchus continues in his duties as servant of the High Priest.  I will go more into this when I compare it to the same event in 'The Passion of the Christ', but I simply couldn't buy Malchus just continuing on with his duties after having had a miracle performed on him.

• God's Not Dead (TRAILER)
  I haven't seen this movie.  These nitpicks are solely based on the trailer.
  
  1. The main storyline (at least that's depicted in the trailer) is that a philosophy professor (Kevin Sorbo) instructs all of his students to write "God Is Dead" on a piece of paper and to sign it with their name.  One student (Shane Harper) refuses to do so, because he is a Christian.  This then goes into the student and the professor having a debate over the existence of God, and if the student loses the debate he will fail the class.  Let's face it:  In real life, if this situation were to happen, the debate would probably not happen because the professor would be fired almost immediately.
  2. "Duck Dynasty" stars Willie Robertson and Korie Robertson have cameo appearances as themselves.  I am sick to death of hearing about "Duck Dynasty" and how it has permeated into pop culture.  Everywhere I turn at the store there is something that either has "Duck Dynasty" or "Duck Commander" on it.  Half of the time I browse the internet there is always at least one article that brings up "Duck Dynasty".  And my issue isn't just with "Duck Dynasty" but with all so-called "reality" shows.

• Titanic
  When I had randomly selected this for my "I Finally Watched..." series, I was prepared to roll my eyes at this movie.  But I ended up thinking that it was pretty good. 
  
  1. Let's face it:  The "Present Day" scenes could have been cut entirely.  The search for the missing 'Heart of the Ocean' diamond really isn't that interesting, and when it cuts back to the present as Rose (Gloria Stuart) tells the story of her time on the ill-fated voyage, it just kinda drags the movie down.  
  2. Now at the end of the movie, it can be interpreted that Rose dies.  She is then back on the Titanic as her younger self (Kate Winslet) and walks up the stairs to reunite with Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) surrounded by and applauded by those who perished in the disaster.  Never mind that after surviving the disaster Rose did eventually get married to someone who isn't Jack, have children with the person she married (who isn't Jack), have grandchildren (with the grandfather not being Jack), and is being cared for in her elderly years by her daughter (who also clearly isn't Jack).  Considering she spent a huge majority of her life with someone else, you'd think she'd be reunited with that person and not Jack.  But I suppose audiences wanted to see Jack and Rose together again.