"Hellboy", the Movie. I saw this on video the other night. Its one of those movies that don't qualify for a date-night event when you help occupy the middle aged couple category, so I hadn't seen it. I enjoyed it; I especially enjoyed the Hellboy character. He emerged into comic-book world well after I left it, so I don't know how he compares with the real thing (real thing?). But his movie version's refusal to take himself and most everything else in his world very seriously made him fun to watch.

The movie has a resurrection that got my attention. There was a resurrection in the first Matrix, as everyone will remember. So now there are two in recent movies that I can recall. (Anyone think of any others? Other than "the" Resurrection in the Passion, of course.)

As to the resurrections in Hellboy and the Matrix, "What", as they say, "is that all about?" Is it more post-modern stuff, where we refuse to acknowledge any certainty, even death? Is that "post-modern" or is it something more instinctive? "Hellboy", of course, is premised on another world being out there. The other world in Hellboy, however, is very dark, a sort of competitor, enemy world to ours, not the "real world" of Christianity of which ours is simply a shadow. But having such a dual world is an interesting advance on the closed, single world of naturalism.

I liked the resurrections in both Hellboy and the Matrix. In both cases, we have the surviving lover bringing the deceased lover back. Its all about love. In Hellboy, we have a defiant, male lover; in the Matrix we have a Madonna (Magdalene?) like, female lover in leather.

Another question: how do you deal with these kinds of movies and not be a Christian? What in the world are non-Christians doing with these images? What do they think about it? Is God putting these resurrections out there to prepare the viewers for the good news of "the" Resurrection? As He may have done with the cult of Mithras in the Greek world during Paul's ministry? Those resurrections could, at least, give us a predicate for talking to others about "the" Resurrection.