Basic movie premise, an elite team of Marines goes to Mars via some cool wormhole bridge to kill things threatening humans up there. One of the Marines was a Christian, a counterpoint to a particularly disgusting character with amoral tendencies toward women, drugs, and so on. The Christian is nicknamed “Goat” (a play on the Lamb of God? A reference to the Sheep and the Goats in Matthew? Or was Lambchops just too uncool for a Marine nickname?).
“Goat” sticks in my head for two scenes, one negative and one positive, both in sick, violent, sci-fi, shoot-em-up bug-hunt ways.
On the negative, Goat takes the Lord’s name in vain. Punishment for breaking the Fourth Commandment? Self-mutilation. He carves a cross into his forearm with his combat knife. I think we were supposed to take note of the extensive scar-tissue.
On the positive, okay, not positive, but rather interesting, Goat, like most of the humans in the movie, gets turned into a flesh-eating demonic creature by other flesh-eating demonic creatures. To stop them, they must be shot with extreme prejudice.
They play a minimal subtext where Goat calls these creatures demons. Then, while his redeemed nature is still in some kind of control of his free will after he is bitten/infected, he chooses to kill himself rather than lost his free will and his soul to this evil. It is grotesquely comical to watch him bang his skull on bulletproof glass to kill himself.That was a lot more introspective then carving a cross in his arm. I still haven’t decided whether I like it or not, but it made me think.
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