[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
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
After the madness of "God's Not Dead" last week, we had to experience the sequel and not just because we bought them in a two pack. Curiously, the main character from the first movie, Josh Wheton, is mentioned but does not appear and we get a new main, a history teacher named Grace. The useless subplots and all their characters are back however, I guess to anchor the stories in the same universe. And i do this universe is the most apt name.
Story Time. There's a teen book by David Levithan called "Boy Meets Boy." The story is a pretty standard gay romantic comedy in every way except for the universe it exists in. Instead of happening in the world as we know it, a world of heteronormativity, the book takes place in this one town that is especially LGBT+ friendly where phrases like "the drag queen quarterback" and "the three straight members of the boys lacrosse team" set the viibe of the town. As long as you can accept the conventions of this queer utopia universe, the book is a fun little read, but if you think that the book exists in the world as we know it, you may just find it unbelievable and hard to get into. I mention this because I think the idea is similar for the "God's Not Dead" movies. The movies exist in a world, or maybe just town, that is separate from the rest of the world, and you have to accept the conventions of this town in order for the film to work. Of course, in this case the thing that is different about this town is a distinct hosility towards Christianity that is supported and upheld by fervent, evil atheists.
The main plot surrounds a non scandal in which Grace is teaching about Martin Luther King Jr. and a student who is finding Jesus in the wake of her brother's death asks a question that compares MLK to Jesus. Grace answers the question in a totally public school friendly way, quoting scripture with citation to "the author of the book of Matthew" and treating Jesus as a historical figure. AND YET, this somehow turns into a huge situation where Grace is accused of preaching in the classroom and instead of just accepting that she made a mistake and moving on, or alternatively arguing that she didn't do anything against policy (because she didn't and for the reference, the writer of this blog is a very secular public school teacher), she decides to take the situation to court to "fight for her beliefs." What exactly she's fighting for makes no sense whatsoever. The rest of the movie is focused on the trial, and it is impossible to tell what the stance of the two sides are because the goal here seems to change constantly. The opposition is, ridiculously, the ACLU because in this universe the ACLU is the bad guy and no one wants to take Grace's case except a young libertarian lawyer (who miraculously doesn't go through a conversion by the end). In the real world the ACLU would be all over supporting Grace but whatever. Somehow the end conclusion of the film is proving again that God's not dead because . . . they proved that Jesus was a historical figure. Okay, movie. Also, the film ends with another Newsboys concert and then an after credit scene of the comic preacher getting arrested for not producing his sermons during the case. Set up for the third one!
We played Christian movie Bingo. Adam got Bingo first, followed by Keith, then Kay, and then Sarah. We literally all won there were so many stereotypes.
[Cross-posted on the Bad Movie Night Facebook page.]
After "Last Ounce of Courage" this was inevitable really. "God's Not Dead" is a wildly popular Christian movie with far too many sequels and more to come. As connoisseurs of Christian movies, we wanted to find a reason for why this particular Christian movie has so captivated its target audience. It's higher quality production value wise than a lot of the Christian movies we saw for one thing. It has actors who people have heard of even though they are basically C-list at this point (Kevin Sorbo aka Hercules and Dean Cain aka Superman). It also features the Newsboys who are apparently a really popular Christian rock band. Really though, the reason this movie seems to be so popular is the premise of the main plot: a fervently atheist philosophy professor goes up against a fervently Christian freshman. I have written before about how Christian movies always want to set up the Christians as persecuted people, but I think the idea of setting most of the film in the world of academia makes more sense than usual in a way. Colleges are seen as liberal (see: godless) places, hostile to religion. While this is the marketing of colleges, like the marketing of America, this idea is false. To quote Adam, an actual philosophy student, "Philosophy classes are actually overwhelming tolerant of every single person's stupid ideas." I could actually just write a whole post about how over-the-top evil the philosophy professor is or about how every single character in the movie builds their theories on fallacy, but this post would be way too long. However, I do have pictures of our logical fallacy Bingo cards. The writer of this blog won. Next week we will be watching "God's Not Dead 2" with Christian movie Bingo.
The main plot centers around a college freshman, Josh Wheton (not to be confused with Joss Whedon). At his registration for his general education classes, he is warned by a student helping him not to take the philosophy class he is taking, after seeing his cross necklace. We find out why pretty quickly. The professor has a bunch of names written on a white board, which we immediately noted as not being a list of all philosophers.
Turns out it was actually a list of atheists, which he was using as justification for why atheism is better. He then makes all the students write "God is dead" on a piece of paper. Josh refuses and they argue, which concludes with the professor saying he must give three speeches to the class defending his position. By the third, the whole class is on the "god's not dead" bandwagon. Of course, you find out that the professor used to be a Christian before he lost his faith and got angry. The movie ends in the most cheesy and forced way possible. The professor gets hit by a car driven by a reverend who begs him to accept god in his dying moments, which he does.
This isn't the only plot, although it is the most prominent. There are subplots all over the place that loosely connect to the two mains. The professor's girlfriend is a Christian who is taking care of her dying mother and getting made fun of by her boyfriend and his educated friends so she dumps him. A Chinese student in the class calls his dad a lot to talk about how he is starting to like god in spite of his communist background. Josh's reverend has a guy come over from somewhere in Africa to . . . hang out and talk about god? I don't know. A liberal blogger who is in a bad relationship with her business boyfriend finds out she has cancer and finds god. And finally, in the most painful subplot, a Muslim girl secretly listens to Bible audiobooks and is kicked out of her house by her overbearing father. In the end, everyone goes to a Newsboys concert and texts everyone they know about how god is not dead. Oh, and some "Duck Dynasty" people are in it.
Overall, this movie isn't really funny but it is fascinating. The way non-Christian characters are presented is so exaggerated that it's practically parody, albeit with a solely judgement and mean-spirited lense. But then, the creators of this movie have probably never met an atheist or secular person.
Spoon Rating: 5
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.
