OPINION:
“The Acolyte” takes Star Wars fans into a time when the Empire didn’t exist. But that doesn’t make everything rosy. “The Bad Boys” cops are being framed. And framing Will Smith and Martin Lawrence is a bad idea. Billie Eilish’s third album is an understated blend of emotional complexity and raw sensuality … with a same-gender focus.
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Read on to get Plugged In on what’s beyond the movie titles and trailers for faith-filled and family-first reviews from Focus on the Family’s Plugged In.
The Acolyte – Streaming on Disney+
“Your eyes can deceive you. You must not trust them.”
So says Sol, a Jedi teacher to his young pupils. It’s one of the first lessons a Jedi must learn—to trust the Force over one’s own senses. And for centuries, that trust has served the Jedi well.
The Republic has been the political center of the galaxy for all that time, of course. But the Republic’s right hand has always been its Jedi: it’s foremost police officers, sage advisers and moral centers.
But lately, there’s been a disturbance in the Force, and the galaxy itself. Someone’s been killing Jedi. Yeah that’s … not easy. And folks are saying that the killer is the spitting image of Osha, one of Sol’s old padawans.
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Your eyes can deceive you, Sol says. And for his sake—and for Osha’s—he certainly hopes so.
When the Jedi order tracks Osha down, the woman seems just as surprised as anyone else. Who, me? Guilty? Osha might’ve left the Order before her apprenticeship was done, but she says she harbors no ill will toward the Jedi.
But could she be lying? After all, the killer’s first victim was Indara, who had been head of a small group of Jedi stationed on Osha’s home planet of Brendock some16 years before. The Jedi’s presence there is linked to disaster: Shortly before Osha was plucked from the planet’s surface to undergo her Jedi training, a fire ripped through Osha’s community and killed her entire family.
Could it be that the killer is after the other Jedi stationed on Brendock that fateful day? Might Torbin, the one-time young Padawan, be in danger? What about Kelnacca, the fearsome Wookie warrior? Might the killer be after the kindly Master Sol himself?
It looks like Sol has a murder mystery on his hands, and he trusts Osha enough to accept her help. But in this mystery, Sol can only count on two things. One, the butler didn’t do it. And two, the eyes can deceive you—even those of a Jedi Master.
(Editor’s Note: Plugged In is rarely able to watch every episode of a given series for review. As such, there’s always a chance that you might see a problem that we didn’t. If you notice content that you feel should be included in our review, send us an email at letters@pluggedin.com [or contact us via Facebook or Instagram], and be sure to let us know the episode number, title and season so that we can check it out.)
Read the rest of the review here. Watch the trailer here.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die – In Theaters
“Bad Boys: Ride or Die” will likely resonate with longtime fans of this buddy cop franchise, which was relaunched back in 2020 after a 17-year hiatus. It’s fueled with all the stuff they’ll expect in these pics, from character-driven goofy humor to quick-paced, peel-back-the-story-layers heroic action.
Still, fan for the series or not, it’s a bumpy, R-rated ride. This film is jam packed with a bludgeoning onslaught of nasty language and explosively deadly violence that includes bloody kill shots and torture scenes.
Family audiences? They should jump in their car and ride … very far away.
Read the rest of the review here. Watch the trailer here.
Billie Eilish “Hit Me Hard and Soft” Album
It’s impossible to know for sure how autobiographical any given artist’s songs truly are. That said, “Hit Me Hard and Soft” has the feel of something that’s deeply personal and revealing. Billie Eilish paints a complicated and layered self-portrait here of a woman longing for love and deeply aware of the ways she’s had her heart broken … and how she’s broken others’ hearts.
Eilish doesn’t play coy when it comes to the fact that she identifies as a lesbian. “Lunch,” in particular, is shockingly shameless in its depiction of Eilish’s female-focused sexual appetites.
The fact that Eilish sings so matter-of-factly about her same-gender attraction offers stark evidence of how far our mainstream culture has walked down this path when it comes to all things LGBT. It’s hard to imagine such plainspoken same-sex fantasizing from a mainstream pop star even five years ago. I suspect many—including some young people quietly grappling with this issue in their own lives—will hear a deep affirmation of that path here.
That perspective, combined at certain points with other suggestively sensual lyrics, is certainly one of the big stories here–especially for families who might have young fans of Billie Eilish. Those moments offer more than enough reason to hit the pause button on streaming Eilish’s latest, as she veers diametrically from God’s intended design for sexual intimacy between a man and woman in covenantal marriage.
We could easily stop right there. But I think we need to press just a bit deeper.
As I listened to each track here—just as was the case on when I reviewed Taylor Swift’s “Tortured Poets Department”—I hear brokenness and longing, a deep desire for intimacy and meaning and connection. Yes, I respectfully believe Billie’s looking for that love in, as the old song says, all the wrong places. But her heart and yearning to know and be known is achingly, painfully present almost from start to finish.
Billie Eilish may not know it—and she (as well as many others, I suspect) might mock me for saying it—but she’s looking for God, looking for a kind of love only He can give her.
Read the rest of the review here.
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Plugged In is a Focus on the Family publication designed to shine a light on the world of popular entertainment while giving families the essential tools they need to understand, navigate, and impact the culture in which they live. Through our reviews, articles and discussions, we hope to spark intellectual thought, spiritual growth and a desire to follow the command of Colossians 2:8: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”
Reviews written by Paul Asay, Bob Hoose and Adam R. Holz.
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