Bad Movie = Bad Move

I got up Saturday morning at 8:20ish to go to a Quiz meet.

Neemund picked me up around 8:45 and we hit McDeath on the way into church. We showed up a few minutes late but luckily it didn't matter. Most of the team showed up about the same time and we got to chat for awhile before things really got started.

I was signed up to serve as an official but I ended up missing half of the officials orientation because I was too busy talking. It turned out to be no big deal because one of my fellow officials was paying attention and was able to tell me my room assignment.

I was an A-1 judge. The day was pretty uneventful for me, except for the fact that we had more than the usual level of contesting. In an unusual twist, we went the entire day without accepting even one contest. After the quizzing finished I assisted in resetting the rooms.

When we finally finished up we went out to see a movie. This is where my day went bad.

Because I missed Thursday practice, I didn't hear that Neemund, Shadow Walker and TBQelite were planning on going to see Underworld: Evolution. They invited me to come along. I was a bit skeptical at first seeing as how I hadn't seen the first movie in the series(Underworld) and I'm not a big fan of vampire/werewolf movies. On the other hand I had heard a lot about Underworld and it sounded really cool.

As I understood it the basic premise involved a war between competing gangs of vampires and werewolves. The movie had lots of urban gunfighting and action and from the talk of my peers I deduced that it was rather like The Matrix meets Van Helsing. It sounded like a recipe for niftiness.

Unfortunately, the sequel was different. I should have been tipped of by Evolution's high rating but I rationalized it away recalling that several of my favorite movies were rated R (Gladiator, The Patriot, The Matrix). I also had the assurances of my friends who had seen Underworld that the rating was based solely on the high levels of action violence and some course language. I assumed that Evolution would be similar but I was wrong.

There are three things that movies get rated for: violence, language and something else.

Evolution had far more “something else” than was acceptable. There were several scenes that required me to close my eyes and ears and look away. While I didn't really see anything really bad(The movies only saving grace was that the “something else” scenes were easy to see coming.) I felt ashamed to have selected a movie that contained such things. Additionally, I thought the fighting was poorly choreographed and more gory than necessary. Due to the low moral quality of the movie it was probably a good thing that I didn't like the plot either. It would be unfortunate to enjoy a movie with that much garbage in it.

The feelings I left the theater with were not my normal feelings of wonder and appreciation but rather the conviction that I should have known better and the determination to never let it happen again. Worse yet was the pang of guilt knowing that if I had listened there was a still small voice warning me away, a voice that was drowned out by my excitement about seeing a movie with the guys.

I should have done my research and checked reviews that revealed the bad material so that I wouldn't have wasted my time, money and put a black mark on my good character.

Next time I'll do better.