I just watched the film. Pilgrim's Progress: Journey to heaven. So I wanted to take a few moments to post some thoughts about the film. First off these are my personal comments and don't reflect the thoughts and ideas of the Filmweavers collective.

The film isn't an attempt to tell the whole Pilgrim's Progress story directly from the book but more to communicate the same basic story drastically cut down and still have it make sense. The format uses a combination of narration and acting which though it wouldn't work for many films, I felt fit quite nicely what they were trying to do. It also uses a modern twist on the environment which I was skeptical of to be honest but in the end it really didn't come across "cheesy" as I thought it might. They don't attempt to bite off more than they can chew in the retelling which is part of what worked for me significantly. The entire story was taken at a "doable" level. Meaning it's obviously not a 150 million dollar Peter Jackson style film. So if you've been waiting for such you are going to be profusely disappointed. If you are able to change your expectations a bit however it makes for an enjoyable watch. Also let me say if you saw the trailer and were turned off by it you might consider giving it another chance. The trailer was in my opinion pretty bad. It looked grade C. (cheesy) It may have lowered my expectations so much that when I saw the film itself I liked it I'm not sure. Bottom line is the trailer didn't do it justice. Let's break down a couple of sub topics for this quick review.

Cinematographer James Burgess pulled off some pretty nice camera work and lighting for this film. Once again let me say the trailer didn't do any of his work justice. The HVX200's color representation abilities come through very nicely. In addition the color grading on the film which Burgess also did make it all pretty nice to look at. There were only a couple times usually involving strong sunlight that were unavoidable.

Acting. A high point in this film. Not knowing the budget I have no way to know what the source was for all the acting talent but watching it it's difficult to believe they were your church congregation variety apart from a just a couple of the characters. The main actor (Daniel Kruse) has the perfect look and his acting is spot on, these things together cause him to (quite literarily) carry the entire film on his back. Whilst he engages you the supporting actors fill the gaps decently well.

Sound was VERY professionally done. It really helped pull me into the environment of the film, with just a couple times when the foley seemed a little much.

Music. The scoring across the board was fantastic, and upped the professionalism of the whole film immensely.

Visual effects were lacking or "over the top" in many places, but knowing how difficult these are to accomplish in the low budget category I'd say it was acceptable and in general didn't really pull me out of the film's fantasy environment. I may be a special case because i've worked on visual effects and I'm more accepting of peoples efforts so someone who isn't in that category would be more critical I'm sure. While the CG itself was pretty decently modeled and textured.. The animation on some of the digital characters was sorely lacking. Aside from that I was drawn into the story enough I found myself willing to accept a few inconsistencies in the effects.

In conclusion, I liked the film quite a bit. It made for an enjoyable offering to sit back and watch how they tried to accomplish something that's never been done before. You did find yourself wondering at nearly every step.. I wonder how they are going to pull off such and such, and generally I wasn't terribly disappointed with the result, once again if you take it at the "level" they have chosen for the film. All these things said, the film doesn't have a lot of replay value. Some of the character monologues are a bit long, and given the very progressive, linear nature of the story. You just don't necessarily feel like sitting through it all again. So i would say, by all means I'd get it for two reasons.

1. Support this kind of Christian film making,

2. Just to see how they tried to pull it off.

It'll be interesting.  Just don't expect to add it to your library of films to watch every day!