In 2014, along came a movie about a evangelical college student who challenges his atheist Philosophy professor about the existence of God. The professor gives the student twenty minutes at the end of three lectures to make an argument about God's influence and general existence. The atheist professor spouts atheist things. The atheist professor is then revealed to be a former Christian who lost his way. Then he's hit by a car and dies. The End.
Oh...you probably want a more in depth review than that. Well unfortunately, this movie's story is about as bare bones as I am, and trying to find story in a story-less plot is like, well, trying to prove the existence of God. I mean how much did the writers possibly have to grasp at straws to write the one-dimensional characters that inhabit the universe of this turkey? So many things in the film are things we're either supposed to just accept, or supposed to know, or supposed to believe in without being expressly told or shown. You're probably thinking to yourself "Okay, so there exists a movie about proving the belief in God to a non-believer, that's a new thing, it's never been done before." Oh, but it has, and in far more creative and artistically awe-inspiring and fascinating ways. Movies about the Bible are not-rare, but they're not common either. The best stories that express belief in an Almighty spirit
and hook the viewer's interest in the subject are the movies that do not
tell you to believe because they say so, but the ones that
show you to believe. One of my favorite movies of all time is Cecil B. DeMille's
The Ten Commandments from 1957 starring Charlton Heston as Moses, the Hebrew slave who returns to Egypt to free his people, adapted from the the Book of Genesis from the Old Testament, I believe.. That movie would be enough to provoke for any young boy or girl to find God and believe in something. The special effects, the sets, and the story capture your imagination and make you truly wonder about the existence of God to the point that you'd want to get out to your local Sunday service and be a part of it.
God's Not Dead does the complete opposite of that. It descends into full-on cult status for alienating non-believers or potential believers by saying "Yes, God exists, and the people who don't believe have bad things happen to them or are inherently bad people." That sends a lot of poor messages about who you are and what your missions are. You want potential spiritual newcomers to at least remain free-thinking, don't you? You can't possibly think transforming the Christian religion into a cult is a phenomenal marketing strategy, can you? To get a better idea, I suppose I have to take this moment and walk through the plot to better understand where the movie's coming from.
DISCLAIMER: Before I begin, I'd like to say this: I consider myself spiritual in nature, living in a Catholic home and frequenting Christmas Mass, but I was never baptised so I'm not technically Catholic myself. I don't consider myself a practitioner, nor am I Biblically inclined. I don't know what book is in what Testament in what order, I don't know what the Gospel is, I don't know the name of Jesus' disciples, and I'm not aware of what exactly is the need for ten thousand different translations or wordings of the Bible itself. With that out of the way, let's begin...
So the movie's "story" starts when our main character Josh Wheaton, though the other characters slur his last name into "Whedon", which makes me think this Aeropostale poster-boy is the guy behind
The Avengers, registers for a philosophy class in college as a freshman. During his first day of class, we see his professor, Jeffrey Radisson (played ironically by Kevin Sorbo, one of the most devout actors in the world) pass around a sheet and forces his students to sign it. What exactly are they signing? It's stated that they're signing a sheet that says that God is dead and they accept it. If they don't sign it, Sorbo says he'll fail them.
Now, take that in for a second. Something about this paper just makes me have a problem with something, I can't recall what it is...oh right, LOGIC! THE CONSTITUTION! COMMON SENSE! FREE WILL THINKING! When this scene started unfolding, my brain shut off. Where in the name of ass does this complete mess of a story even
begin to make sense? Did these dickhead writers take even ONE college course? Did they watch ONE episode of
Saved by the Bell: The College Years?College. Doesn't. Happen like that.
First off, a college philosophy professor who so happens to be an atheist is about as stock as it gets. The only thing more predictable is if he happened to be some sort of scientist. Secondly, since when is forcing a classroom of fifty-plus to sign a paper saying they agree with you on your train of thought, no matter what it is, or else he'll fail you, even
remotely okay? Wouldn't someone catch whiff of this happening? This probably isn't Kevin Sorbo's first semester teaching either. He's probably done this for all of the other semesters, which means if common sense flows through humans like I hope it does, he would've been fired a long time ago for pulling that shit. Again, this movie likes to throw free will out the window in favor of playing the propaganda card and flat-out telling you what to think and believe, rather than let you do the smart, healthy thing and go on a journey of self-discovery. Thirdly, and this is a big one; Josh is the
only person in a room of fifty-plus who refuses to sign it. Whoa. Mind blown. You're telling me that in a room of that many people, only
one kid is a devout believer who's brave enough to stand up to this bullshit? The writer's must've been
living in Sunday school because in real life, non-believers would even stand up to this tragic misuse of free speech, but also in real life this ridiculous thing wouldn't even happen in the first place because PEOPLE DON'T DO THIS, but I digress.
Actually, there are other kids in the class that care, but apparently only Josh was brave enough to have a problem with it and stand up with his issue. Now, the solution to this? Have a one-on-one in Sorbo's office to discuss his pretentious caterwauling about how God's wrong to believe in and doesn't exist and settle it like men in a "you leave me alone, I leave you alone" scenario? If you think that's the answer, you're clearly not paying attention and need to start this review over. No, Sorbo decides to donate twenty minutes of class time at the end of the next three lectures for Josh to get up in front of the class and present his reasoning to prove the existence of God. Goddammit, this movie just keeps getting more and more ridiculous. Ridiculous levels are on par with a Care Bear snorting cocaine whilst trying to teach the ABCs to GED-seeking Ritalin-addicted sex maniacs who just can't stop stealing cookies from the public snack tray during Improv class. How ridiculous is that? WAY OFF THE CHARTS RIDICULOUS. First off, what normal college class is going to donate valuable time to the professor's game of "Let's see how worthless and stupid I can make my students feel today". Granted it's a philosophy course, so these types of discussions probably occur a lot more often than we think they do. Still, in a lot of my college classes, professor's often fight tooth and nail just to save time. Having all of this free time to throw around is pretty far-fetched considering the classes I've taken. Not to mention, if anything not related to class is going on, students
will get up and leave. Period. College isn't like high school where you're forced to stay. I've seen kids sit down, figure out what we're learning and get up and leave. If all of these kids don't care or are too timid to stand up to Radisson, why the name of fuck do they sit, stay and listen? I would've jetted out of that hellhole and signed up for a Philosophy class that
actually devotes time to learning, not childish shenanigans.
In case this plot isn't riveting enough for you, the writers thought of that too. You see, making the whole movie about Josh and Professor Dickface would've resulted in it being about, oh...forty-five minutes long. To counteract this, there's a series of attention-stealing side plots that are just as jaw-dropping as the main plot. One of my favorite side characters is Josh's girlfriend, whose name escapes me, because she's not important enough to care about, much less remember her name. She's mad because Josh decided to stand up for what he believes in and has apparently "committed academic suicide" by doing so. Really? In just his freshman year? Listen up, writers; if this college is like any other college I've been to or even heard of, failing one Philosophy class in your freshman year is nowhere
near academic suicide, even if Philosophy's already your declared major. You could most certainly retake it, and because it's a freshman level course, that leads me to believe that there are about twenty other professors who teach the same class, so you could definitely retake it with a DIFFERENT GUY; probably one that's not a complete tool, too! In fact, Josh had a chance to! When he's picking professors, the kid handling his registration says he should pick a different professor because of Radisson's apparent reputation as an atheist, but Josh comes up with the no-brainer retort of "...if I choose a different professor, I'll have to rearrange my whole schedule." Apparently Josh
also didn't get the memo that it's his freshman year, so there's only once again about twenty-ish professors per class for him to choose from which would allow for an
easy-as-hell reworking of his schedule...
So, not only does Josh's no-name honey believe that, but she's also a complete loony because she actually uses the phrase "I'm sorry I had the first fifty years of our lives planned out", which is a little scary...okay no, that's
really fucking scary. Forget clingy; this girl is that soaked piece of toilet paper you're trying to wipe off of your porcelain bathtub. Yep...that stuck.
So Josh sticks to his guns, and she dumps him. Yep, she dumps him for defending his beliefs. Remember that one stuck-up prune that fucked every guy in high school except for you? I guess the writer does, because he must have based Josh's girlfriend on her. This girl is so shallow, she's not even at kiddie-pool depth yet. She's at a depth of "I just turned on the faucet to make sure water was coming out". Not only that, but Josh isn't even remotely effected by it. She dumps him and after brief contemplation, he's just like "Okay..." Remember guys, your girlfriend is important, but God is important-er. Were these two even in love? I don't think so. They certainly don't act like it. He's all "Me, me, me" with his beliefs and she's all "Me, me, me" with everything about the relationship because of how controlling she is, and there was not "We, we, we" this whole time.
Next side plot character? Mina. Jesus Christ (no pun intended) is she a dead-end character. She's Kevin Sorbo's girlfriend in the movie, which is weird because despite however old she actually is, she looks twenty-seven and he's like...fifty-five, so even if she is age-appropriate, she doesn't
look age appropriate and it
looks creepy as all get-out. She is clearly just shoehorned into the movie so that the Christian viewers have another reason to hate atheists...you know, like this movie didn't give them enough reasons. She suffers constant emotional abuse by Radisson because of his atheism and her devout Christian beliefs (because that's all atheists fill their time with...hate), and like a spineless wimp she sits there and just takes it. There's a scene where she serves wine to a dinner party hosted by her and Sorbo that a bunch of Sorbo's colleagues attend (who all, for the sake of pushing another bullshit message, happen to be atheist) that she accidentally left in the trunk of her car, and everybody hates it. Not only that, but they start mocking her and making jokes, including a "Grapes of Wrath" pun that makes me wanna French-kiss a power outlet. The creme of the crop? Sorbo laughs
with the hecklers and
at his girlfriend... Stop it. Just stop it. If you're trying to make me hate Kevin Sorbo it's not gonna happen. I'll just watch a re-run of
Hercules and fall back in love with him instantly. The message that atheists are nothing more than hateful jackrabbits is hit into my skull so much, which is so not true in so many respects, that it's hard to take the whole of this shit seriously. You can't take anything seriously. This is like the play somebody writes when a kid bullies them too hard and bases the main character off of that bully and makes him out to be a giant prick. It's unfair to the audience how much hate is being leveled here. I thought Christianity was about loving thy neighbor and all men being made equal in the eyes of the Lord? When did that go out the window?
Next we have Mark, Mina's brother. He's only here because he's Mina's brother, and that's it. Oh wait, did I mention he's an atheist and played up to be a bad guy? Oh yeah, you probably don't fucking need to be told anymore. God, I hate this movie. He's played by Superman dropout Dean Cain of all people, and has a role rather small, thankfully. Unfortunately, so is his impact. Together with Mina, he has a mother sickened with Alzheimer's disease. He refuses to see her because he wants to remember how she was, and not how she is now, but eventually has a change of heart and visits her anyway, only to somewhat mock her because he's not a believer and he's rich and she's a believer and she has Alzheimer's so...ha ha? He even spouts a horrible line that goes something like "If she can answer what three plus three is, I'll come visit her", which is...just an awful thing to do in both life and to your ailing mother.
Mark's
other big plot occurrence is his girlfriend Amy, who is devout. Ugh. Another Christian-atheist couple. Do you get the feeling that the writer's hate atheists yet? Do you get the feeling they aren't even trying to write a good story anymore? If you think you're still watching a movie, you need to put down the Book and think for yourself for once. Do some independent thought; trust me, it's good for you. This isn't a movie; this stopped being a movie so long ago. No, this is an internet rant on atheists that got adapted into a two-hour clip show of atheists supposedly doing what they do best which is live without love, and hurt those that live with love. So in case this movie
still can't convince you that atheists are hateful swine that don't deserve to share God's planet with you, Dean Cain dumps Amy because she gets diagnosed with cancer...
There are no words to describe my anger for how atheists are being treated right now. I have no words. This is without a doubt the worst movie ever written. I'll say it. The dialogue card is played unfairly in the Christian light so that the devout characters have all the whimsical lines and character development while the atheists, the ones whose characters need development and would have much bigger and better payoffs and make this movie worthwhile, are mistreated so badly. They're your one-dimensional stock villains that do evil things because they're evil. That's it. It brings my piss to a boil on how astronomically fucked up this whole thing is. What makes me even angrier is that fact that there
are people out there who think this is all tried and true.
Let's just speed round the rest of these fun-bags because I'm already tired of reviewing this mess. There's the two reverends, Reverend Dave and Reverend Jude, who decide to spend a few days together and go to Disney World. They act oddly homosexual which threw me for a loop because I thought "No pastor would allow this into the movie". They get in a car, and it doesn't start. Odd, so they get a rental car, and
it doesn't start. Alright, I think I know where this is going...it's because they're secretly gay, right? Being gay is wrong in the eyes of Jesus, right? Well no, once they believe hard enough the car starts and the leave just fine. So...was that a side plot? Did the movie just distract us for ten minutes? Was that an internet ad for the Church of Christ while the movie buffers? I don't get it. It almost feels like it doesn't belong. The only reason this ordeal exists is because these two are the ones who help Radisson in the end of the movie. Without this scene, you wouldn't even know who these two are? Their impact in the movie is zilch.
Finally, there's Ayisha, a girl raised Muslim her whole life by her traditional Muslim father--OH WAIT! Let me guess! She's secretly interested in or has already joined Christianity and her dad finds out and something really bad happens?! Ding, ding, ding...we have a winner. Her brother catches her listening to Billy Graham's son Franklin on her iPod and rats on her. She gets kicked out of her house by her father after he beats her and she ends up at Reverend Dude's church where he says that it doesn't matter if she doesn't have a roof over her head or food to eat, so long as she has God. Interesting theory, movie; logic tries to fight you on that one, but I'll let you have that one because I'm just that nice'a guy. First of all, many times what can happen is that Christians in Muslim households, especially women, are KILLED for this. Why would her little brother rat her out when this could very well happen? You
could argue that he doesn't understand that this could happen, but he's sure as hell going to regret it if it did. Secondly, how does her little brother know who Franklin Graham is? Is he a secret listener too? Some would say he's famous, but I didn't know who he was before I viewed this mess, so that's not true. You know, that almost negates the first argument. If her brother understands the difference between Christianity and Islam and why both parties aren't very tolerable of one another, he goddamn jolly-well should understand the implications of what could happen by ratting out his sister.
So you probably wanna know how the main plot ends, right? Well unfortunately, a killing spree isn't involved. Like you're probably expecting, there's a slight payoff, and it's taken away from a ludicrous event. To sum it all up, Josh's debates with the professor don't start off as planned. Josh's overly decorated PowerPoints fail to impress his classmates and Radisson. The second debate ends up the same way, with Josh coming up with some valid points and Radisson shuts him down again. The
third debate ends with Josh, of course, inspiring some of his classmates by beating Radisson in the debate by forcing him to admit that God does in fact exist, and he just hates Him for his mother dying despite his constant prayer. Because of all of that, he is a religious recluse and trashes the ideals of spiritual nutcases everywhere. However, somewhere after the event of of Josh proving him wrong, Radisson finds a letter from his mother that re-inspires his faith and he goes to the Newsboys concert at the end of the movie to confess his true love for Mina and that he loves her for who she is, (By the way, I failed to mention that's the big payoff of the movie. The Christian rock band Newsboys performs their song "God's Not Dead" and dedicate it to Josh for his role in standing up to those mean ol' atheists), regardless of her religion. Hooray! His arc is complete! Something was actually completed in this movie! He actually has a complete arc of--, oh wait he's killed off. Son of a BITCH!!!
I have a few problems with Radisson's death in the movie. The biggest is that his change of character is not only ill-advised but also not likely. Let's think about this: A man who's lived part of his life initially believing in Christ, then denouncing and living a larger part of his life as an atheist and thus not believing in an Almighty Spirit of any kind, just all of a sudden decides that for the good of his relationship and his career to re-accept Christ as his Lord and savior whilst dying in the street from internal injuries suffered from getting hit by a car, is just ludicrously insulting. First off, it's a little cheap for the writers to allow Radisson to have this all-important realization and re-acceptance of faith just to kill him off anyway. If Radisson was the Radisson of real-life, he would've died on that street telling Reverend Dave to go eat a dick and curse God's name unto death. What happened to his moral crusade against God? He just gave up? Are you serious? His twenty-plus year as a Jesus hater was suddenly dropped because he had a slight epiphany reading a letter from his mother? So he decides to be a good person, and being a good person means accepting Christ into your life until you're dead. This is the payoff. You cannot be a good person, unless you accept Jesus into your life. It is impossible. Boom. Message delivered. Roll credits.
Even if Radisson didn't accept Jesus back into his life, he
could've still had a change of heart and just simply stopped acting like an asshat. That's it! That pay off would've given a lot better message. Holy cow I'm a genius. To live
with love somehow without Jesus in your life. It
is possible, people. Same with Mark and Amy. Mark and Amy could've reconciled (although she would be wise to reject him seeing as how he dumped her for something happening to her of fate, not of choice) and that would've said a lot about Mark and how far he's come. Instead, Mark has no payoff. Mark's just an asshole. Why? You already fucking know why, because he's atheist. Same stupid message the movie's told you for the last two hours. Radisson has a somewhat payoff, but it's half-assed and rushed.. He could've just stopped acting like an butt clown and learned to love in his heart without accepting Jesus in his life, but also realized the love Jesus brings to his wife and accepted that. What a great payoff that would've been, but that's not what this movie's about is it? This movie is all about telling us that Jesus is the only one who can make you a good person. Being a good person isn't something you're born to do or skills you learn, it's only something you inherit from becoming a devout follower of Christ. Blow. Me. Sideways.
I'm not saying religion is bad for your mind, far from it; but I
am saying that this movie could have a ton more leeway on its messages. It portrays Christians as being open-hearted lovers who only want the atheists to understand their beliefs, which holds true to real life, but it won't let that message get across because the movie won't allow atheists to have a change of heart because it tells us atheists can't have a change of heart. They're
all heartless. The only atheist to have anything close to a change of heart is Radisson, and this movie teaches him a lesson for his years of Bible abuse by killing him.
FINAL RATING:
<* = 0.2 out of 5 stars:
God's Not Dead is a horribly-written, badly-acted, mish-mash of random events that are disjointed and lack universally-relatable, down to Earth characters. The movie favors a propaganda approach to storytelling over eventual payoffs, completion of character arcs, and hopeful reconciliations that emotionally would've paid off in far better ways. It teaches us that atheists are shallow, cold-hearted, loveless people who would rather see the ideals of God destroyed than simply agree to disagree and coexist as the Almighty truly intends. It leaves the idea that all people could get along, regardless of religion or creed at the front door to deliver two hours of loathsome dialogue, horrendously laughable character situations, and cheap tying-up of loose ends. It no doubt resides in the hearts of close-minded buffoons who share the same narrow-sighted ideals and view this laid-egg as a stand-up entertainment and all-important media
The rating would be 0, but I just watched a clip of the TV show
Hercules, so Kevin Sorbo gives the movie 0.2.
