SAVED! (3 outta 5 stars) Better than average teen comedy about a modern-day Christian high school. Mary, a young student (Jena Malone) has a vision of Jesus after a near death experience which tells her that she must give herself to her boyfriend to "cure" him of his homosexuality. Well, he gets shipped off to a re-programming camp anyway... but while he's gone Mary finds out that she is pregnant. She can't really tell her best friend (the overly-devout Hillary Faye, nicely played by pop star Mandy Malone)... but does begin to develop a friendship with "bad girl" Cassandra (Eva Amurri) and her wheelchair-bound boyfriend (Macauley Culkin, who would have ever thought that *he* would appear in a *good* movie?) Mary tries to hide the pregnancy as long as she can... at least until the school year ends. In the meantime, her mom (Mary Louise Parker) is having "meetings" with the "hip" Pastor Skip (Martin Donovan) who runs the school, talking to the kids in a whitebread rap style ("Are you down with G-O-D? Jesus is in the house!") There are some really funny lines in this movie... but the movie never really gets silly. The characters are developed as real people and are not just stereotypes put in there for the sake of a gag. The ending kind of wraps up everything into too neat of a bundle... but the movie as a whole winds up being both funny and thought-provoking... for Christians and non-Christians alike. Best line: "There's only one reason Christian girls come down to Planned Parenthood..." "She's planting a PIPE BOMB???"
