An Invitation from a Friend
When friend and author Jim Stovall made an advanced screening of the newest film based on one of his books available to me, I knew I wanted to go. Although I am a friend of Jims, I’m also a big fan of his work and have enjoyed many of his books (A Christmas Snow, The Lamp, The Ultimate Gift, to name a few). So my wife and I headed out to take in the film this week.
A Little Background
If for some reason you haven’t read Jim’s “Ultimate” line of books including The Ultimate Gift, The Ultimate Life and The Ultimate Journey or seen the first film based on his The Ultimate Gift book you can still enjoy this film. It is being promoted as a sequel and prequel to The Ultimate Gift film and rightly deserves the title.
The film starts in modern day as Jason Stevens is busy with the work of running his Grandfather’s billion dollar foundation and is beginning to overlook the things in life that are truly important. As his world begins to fall apart through various circumstances his grandfather’s long time friend Hamilton (played by Bill Cobbs), lets him in on a secret. His grandfather kept a journal his entire life and he just might be able to find something in there that will help him.
The Story of Red Stevens
As Jason opens the journal we get taken back in time to days long forgotten and a time when Red Stevens was just a young man. Red is growing up in a poor family and has promised himself that someday he will be a billionaire. As we follow Red along his journey we get to experience some of the circumstances along the way that helped shape him into who he became in later years.
We meet his childhood sweetheart, his mentor (played by Peter Fonda) and others who helped him along the way. There are numerous times when the audience laughed out loud and even cried as we were swept away on Red’s journey with him as he found out what is truly important in life and that message and the way in which it was conveyed was to me the highlight of the film.
The Ultimate Life is a powerful message of legacy that will inspire you!
See It or Don’t See It?
I believe there is a large group of people who will really enjoy this film. It is a family friendly and entertaining story that families can enjoy together and take away a powerful message on what our fortune and legacy in life truly is. I will definitely watch it with my older kids (10 & 8).
That said, it is a slower film like The Secrets of Jonathan Sperry. I also felt like the filmmakers tried to get too many events on the screen instead of spending more time developing the relationships of the characters and tightening up plot points. It seemed to jump around a bit.
My final recommendation would be that if you liked The Ultimate Gift you’ll enjoy this one as well and if you want to see more family friendly, entertaining films like this in your local theater you need to go opening weekend September 6th – 8th. The message more than makes up for the few criticisms I had with the production quality and story and young and old alike will enjoy it.
RATING: See It!
More Information
To find out if it will be playing by you or to help spread the word visit The Ultimate Life at:
www.facebook.com/TheUltimateLifeMovie
If you want to buy out an entire theater or get group sales information you can visit:
www.TheUltimateLifeMovie.com/buyout
*As mentioned above, I was invited to a free screening of the film.
About Joe Jestus
