I never really got on board the whole Chuck Norris meme express to Dweebville. Maybe it's because I'm a self-respecting adult who still values dignity despite the myriad humiliations cobbled together by every waking moment in this stark, modern world, or maybe it's because everybody knows that Jean Claude Van Damme is inherently better than Chuck Norris. Whatever the case, I'm pretty sure the whole Norris meme jumped the shark in 2008 when Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee used the fictional Texas Ranger for a campaign bump. Mike Huckabee, as I'm sure you all know, is certified Mondo Maxi-Lame by Le Departement de Rad-Awesome in beautiful Marseilles, France, so he definitely destroyed all the ironic popularity surrounding Chuck Norris. But how could this even come to pass? Surely Norris was aware of his new media windfall. Well, it all comes down to something Norris and Huckabee have in common: Amerikristianity.

Amerikristianity is a particular strain of the Christian faith that, as the name suggests, came into being in these United States. Unlike Old World Christianity, it's not arcane, ritualistic or imposing. Rather, it employs the guise of humility and simplicity to promote a wealthy, well-connected super-organization with millions of followers. Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris represent two elements of Amerikristianity. The former is the unabashed authority figure who covers up his immodest affluence and power-mongering with an Aw, Shucks! attitude. The latter is a representative of the very well-organized media collective that has spent the past fifty years bound and determined to make a crappy version of everything good in secular entertainment. You like rock music? Great, here's some unlistenable Christian rock instead. How about video games? We've got loads of poorly coded knock-offs for your Nintendo whatever-whatever. As for hard-kicking Chuck Norris, he's got your action movie quota covered with a series of straight-to-video stinkers about karate-ing the Devil back to Hell.

But the Amerikristian Chuck Norris movies are already several years old. In the film industry, that's ancient. So, what's new in the world of horrible religious imitations of proper entertainment? Why, it's Cosmic Conflict: The Origin of Evil. I'm not lying when I say I want to see this movie. Well, let me rephrase that. I want to see this movie while wildly intoxicated, which just so happens to be the only condition under which I'm willing to watch the recent Speed Racer movie as well. Cosmic Conflict promises to be a horribly misconceived romp through cheap CGI, hackneyed writing and stupendously horrible acting.

The promo video on the CC website hits all the right notes. A host, Pastor Doug, hedges the overtly Christian message with vague references to an imaginary universal spirituality, citing a "fight between good and evil" that all religions recognize. Cue the stock footage of Christians at church, Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem (it's where we all live, ya know!), Muslims praying (just as Doug says the word "oppression") and a vague collection of gussied-up Asians who may not even be performing a religious ritual. You might notice that the Church of Scientology does the same thing.

After the weak intro, scenes from the supposedly epic movie do their best to look like the Amerikristian equivalent of Lord of the Rings. The funniest part is that Cosmic Conflict is being billed as a documentary. Now, I know that if you're a True Believer you think the bible is fact. That's not my issue here. It's really stretching the whole "documentary" label when your movie requires loads of special effects, a huge cast of actors and an extensive script. At best, Cosmic Conflict is as much a documentary as Braveheart.

Ultimately, Cosmic Conflict is just another bad movie to force kids to watch in the basement of the church, but I'll be damned if it doesn't look wonderfully entertaining... wait, according to them I actually will be damned. I guess that takes care of that little quandary.