The Shack

Perhaps there are Christians who will appreciate The Shack's Oprahfied universal heaven, wherein no bad deed goes punished. But it made us pine for the Book of Job God to spitefully hurl leviathans and behemoths.

Making a sincere film about religious faith is a tricky thing to pull off. And this folksy dose of misguided manipulation demonstrates many of the common pitfalls.

Touchy-feely New Age therapy runs headlong into evangelical Christianity in The Shack.

Good intentions, but far too earnest to appeal to anyone beyond those who believe you can fight a true crisis of the soul with a campfire and some Kumbaya.

The film could have been just crazy enough to be brilliant, but it winds up looking like a wet weekend at Christian Disneyland.

Modern-day Christian parables don't come any stodgier or more syrupy than this.

The Shack attempts to offer a message of redemption, but it does so in such an explicit and moralistic manner that it ends up alienating any viewer who does not share the film's religious vision. [Full review in Spanish]

Essentially a parable at its core, like the book, the film challenges traditional Christian viewpoints, notably in the visual interpretation of God.

The Shack is as graceless as its monosyllabic title.

The Shack is far from profound or thought provoking, but it's not as harmful or hurtful to outsiders as most doctrinally centered films tend to be.