monday ruminations

this is hailed as the most successful film of all time, and genre blending breakthrough with commercial success and art-house appeal.

what is the big deal about this sequent to Batman begin?
this is the one batman film that the action sequence is as exciting as the storyline.
the villain is even more intriguing and outstanding than the protagonist.

batman was first called to fight corruption in his beloved Gotham city. but this time round, there is a district attorney who became the white knight of the city who is incorruptible and fighting the 'dirty cops' and triads along with the police chief. however he is once again called to save Gotham city from an irrational villain that the police and the triads have no ability to control.

enter the villain who are not motivated by power nor money. he just want to be a 'better class of villain'. here come the spoiler...
the Joker just wanted to expose the sinfulness of man. there can be no better way to do that than taunting the 'hero' of the city to 'tango' with him. he wired 2 ferries with bombs and gave each ferry the detonator. they have up to 12 midnight to blow each other up if not they will both be destroyed. one ferry was filled with the criminals and the other the citizens of the city running away to mainland but both of them could not do it. it was not the outcome that Joker expected from the people.
after he failed to create anarchy among the people, he turned the white knight of the city, the righteous DA to the dark side. Harvey DA became Harvey 2 face after the death of his fiancee and went after the 'bad' cops who were involved. he proved that even the most righteous is fallible even the right stimulus.

what make us good, righteous?
what motivate us to do bad?
can we raise up to the occasion and do the right thing?

is there a dark side in all of us waiting to be nudged out?
is there conscience in us that God created us with that give us the courage and strength to do things that we were never expected to do.

there will always be a Joker out there testing you, you can be like the common citizen and the harden criminals of Gotham who decided not succumb to the threat or be Harvey 2 face who give in to his rage.
who would you be?

most of us, at some point of our life...
whether out of frustration about life not dealing us the right cards or when people irritate us beyond out threshold.
or just curious what God does.

storyline not vastly different from most of the feel good movie but there are gems in the script and of course Jim Carey's rubber face.

Bruce was given a chance to be God, (spoiler here!!!) it is not a treat but a test... make better movie than Job's test...
Bruce was all excited when he was given the power of God, make the fire hydrant burst just for fun, control the weather and everything without a soul.

then come the hard part...
to be God is to be the involved and loving deity, you need to answer the prayers of the people!
at least attend to them.
he was so overwhelmed by the numbers of prayers, even after answering millions of them, he still have millions more. he did the ultimate lazy thing but in his eyes the best thing, 'yes' to all the prayers.
all should be well right.. everyone prayers were answered....

NO!

there were riots, angry people, hurting people ....
in reality, not all answered prayers are good for you.
your prayers for winning the lottery were answered, so were the other 1 million who bought the tickets. people lose faith in the system and in the government.
it can spiral to civil war.

then the limits of being God because He is love
every human He created, He created them with a soul that desire for Him and life
and a free will to love, to hate and do what they want.
God can control the wind, the storm, can move mountains, create the universe and all things in it
but He cannot and will not control your will.

He cannot and will not force you to love Him.
in desperation when he can't make his girlfriend to love him despite of all the things he has done, Bruce asked God (played by Morgan Freeman) ' how can you live with free will?'
but God did and will continue to give us the freedom to love or to hate Him.

so what do you think of God now?