A Far Off Place

We watched this movie tonight. Overall it was pretty good.

Basic plot is two white kids (one raised in Africa, one there against his will for vacation) end up in danger and must make their way across the Kalahari Desert. They have a Bushman friend with them. Poachers are out to kill them.

It was interesting to see Reese Witherspoon as a teenager.

Somewhat predictable plot. But that's fine with me. I like predictable plots that don't jumble my wee little brain. And I usually like survivalist stories.

I always wondered about the "clicky language." A couple of the characters spoke in the clicky language. Guess what? It's not all clicks like they told me. There are vowels and other sounds too. But it does have quite a few clicks in it that my western mouth doesn't want to make.

The one thing we didn't like was the religion. Part of the message of the story was that the god Mantis was watching out for the characters, protecting them, providing for them, responding to their "prayers," and communicating with them. If only we could be in tune with nature the way the Bushmen are, we too could have nature on our side, helping us against bad guys.

But other than that, it was definitely a movie worth the two hours time.