God's Not Dead: A Light In Darkness [2018]

[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]

This is a weird one to write about. As consumers of the previous two "God's Not Dead" movies, there should be a lot to say about the third movie in the trilogy, "God's Not Dead: A Light In Darkness." But there kind of isn't. This movie had far fewer wild moments, and while it was still full of misunderstandings of how the world works and still seems to exist in the same universe where Christians are persecuted in America, this movie felt tired. This is the oddest film in the trilogy because it lacks that big victory for the Christians that the other two movies have. They didn't even have a scene where all the atheists and agnostics get converted. And all the people who are lapsed in their faith have really good reasons for it and no one tries to argue them. I think the franchise has given up.

The plot of this movie picks up where the last one left off, with the "cool" reverend getting arrested for refusing to turn over his sermons. He returns to the church only to have it vandalized when someone throws a brick through the basement window and this somehow leads to the death of Jude, the token black guy who only seems to say, "God is good." Those are even his last words in his mother tongue. The backstory behind the brick is that the boyfriend of a girl who is having a crisis of faith blames the church for her dumping him. Really. Then the university that the church is on the campus of decides to use eminent domain to seize the church and destory it because of the bad PR. This is the traditional "God'd Not Dead" nonsense part of the plot. Obviously, this is not a thing that can be done and churches are not only allowed but necessary on college campuses. The Reverend calls his estranged lawyer brother to help him and we get a long journey to a conclusion where they try to repair their relationship. It's more dull than anything else. The kid who threw the brick goes to jail and gets released with seemingly no involuntary manslaughter conviction. In the end there's a big protest at the church with people on both sides and the reverend appears basically to give a sermon about how it doesn't matter that they will take the church from him because peace and everyone is moved.

It's safe to say this isn't worth your time unless you saw the other two and are a passionate completionist like we are.

Spoon Rating: 2