Transitions and mergers are invariably trying periods. The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys (2002) is about the transitional age of adolescence, the period in one’s life when childhood bumps into adulthood as the former departs and the latter arrives, and one’s experiences from these two worlds collide and merge with unpredictable repercussions and results.

It is therefore very apt that the makers of this movie took the ingenious step of integrating emotional, dramatic acting with super action-hero animation, of Todd McFarlane (creator of SPAWN) style no less. The unlikely merger of these two distinct genres highlights the potentially problematic nature of all mergers and transitions, and reminds one that Marshall McLuhan was absolutely spot-on when he coined the phrase: The Medium is the Message. The medium of this movie is an outward manifestation of its message about the trials and tribulations of this very transitional time in one’s life: the period of adolescence.

Peter Care has prolifically translated Chris Furhman’s coming-of-age cult novel into a cinematic masterpiece, because not only has the movie adequately portrayed adolescent angst in ‘70s suburban America, it has also achieved the cult success of its source of inspiration. We are invited to witness the boys’ mindless adventures and mischievous sabotages, such as the irreverently hilarious nabbing of the statue of Saint Agatha, their school’s patron saint, which accounts for most of the humour in the film. The boys occupy their time with a very important project; the creation of a comic book called "The Atomic Trinity", which helps to channel their limitless imagination and rebellious adolescent angst. They each create and develop their own representative superhero and live vicariously through their empowered alter egos. Their evil adversaries are exaggerated characters inspired by the emblematic authority figures in their lives, in particular, Sister Assumpta (Jodie Foster), the stern, peg-legged nun, whom they christen Nunzilla, and Father Casey (Vincent D'Onofrio), the slightly shady, chain-smoking priest.

A major contributing factor to the film’s cult success is undoubtedly the complementary inter-cutting of McFarlane’s animated sequences throughout the movie. That their alternate world of animated action is appropriately allotted almost equal screen time as a parallel narrative to the main action of the film is not the result of an arbitrary flight of fancy. It accentuates the boys’ need to escape from their insular environment of rigid religious dogma and be the masters of their own world of good versus evil. The inter-cutting of these animated sequences is quite seamlessly done too. They serve to reiterate in a more audacious manner the thoughts and feelings, dilemmas and difficulties of the adolescents, mainly from the point of view of Francis (Emile Hirsch), the protagonist and principal artist of the comics. The clever use of animation also seems to have allowed our protagonist to gain some form of foothold in the mysteriously mind-boggling adult world that he is eventually forced to confront head-on.

Art imitates Life. Or is it vice versa?