Earlier this year, I wrote a scathing review of God's Not Dead, which can be found here. I figured in writing such a review, I could ward off potential interested movie goers. I tried, honestly I tried. However, it didn't work. God's Not Dead got a sequel, and that sequel is still running in the box office. America has betrayed me, so let's get this over with.
I'm not being funny here. This won't be like last time where I reviewed the movie and lampooned every single thing just for the sake of arguments. This isn't fun anymore. This aggressive movement must be stopped. This won't be your run-of-the-mill film review. This will be something else.
Why make a sequel to God's Not Dead? If you've read a review, mine or anyone else, you'll see that the plot is pretty contrived, stupid, ignorant, bullshit, and half-assed, among other things. However, one thing the plot is is that it is a closed book. Whether you wanna like it or not, the plot does have a beginning, a middle and an end. Albeit it has about forty middles but you get the gist. Sloppily sandwiched around those middles is a beginning and an end. With an end-all ending like the one God's Not Dead had, was there really a purpose or need to make a sequel from a storytelling standpoint? Were there still messages left un-hammered into the human brain of the casual viewer? If you ask us, no. If you ask God, yes.
The biggest and most glaring problem with God's Not Dead 2 is the fact that the producers of the film didn't learn anything from their last abomination. The characters aren't even stock, they're still the shameless opportunistic dickheads from before. Most of them very annoying, some of them useless, others of which are dead-end background characters used as cheesy plot devices just to get points across. God's Not Dead 2 does not act like a sequel in any sense of the word. It's more of a remake, which would make a lot of sense. You take ideals of faith and belief, shit all over them with God's Not Dead, and then you realize "Oh shit, we fucked up. Guess we have to try it over again. Let's tell the same schlock story, but maybe not make the characters such irritating bags of disappointment." Well, unlike what you're probably thinking, they do just that...to an extent.
The most ironic thing is the main character Grace Wesley, who is played by everybody's favorite teenage witch, Melissa Joan Hart. Why's Sabrina all of a sudden a devout believer in Christ? Did her spells wear off? Not only is she not done justice, but so are two of my favorite actors of all time: Ray Wise and Ernie Hudson. Ray Wise played the goofball dope convict Leon in RoboCop, while Ernie Hudson is most known for playing Winston Zeddemore in Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters 2. Both of them decided they wanted to be in on this, and I guess I have no choice as the viewer but to just agree and let them run free.
So, unlike last time I'm not going to run through this movie's plot. I know, sad right? I'll bet you really wanted to know. Well, you see, as mentioned before, that's just it. This movie's plot is ridiculously similar to the last one. I'd just be repeating myself. In fact it's so similar that by the start of the movie, they're already vilifying "the other side". What other side? Oh right, atheists, non-believers, and any other people who can find it in their black hearts to accept those some believers turn away. If you think this movie would've matured from the last one about how to properly accept those who you deem different, then you need to start seeing a shrink about your perceptions of human nature...you creep.
Without going into a full-on synopsis, I'll just say that Melissa Joan Hart plays a teacher who answers a question about Jesus in class, which apparently the school board doesn't care to endorse. So they suspend her and send her to court. Brilliant! Right? The teacher, again named Grace, stands trial for refusing to apologize for answering a question about Jesus in class. *Sigh*. I believe I have enough faith in you to not explain why that's fucked up. You should know why that's just a holocaust of wrong. Let's say I'm in high school and I'm interested in having my question answered about Jesus. First off, an underpaid public high school teacher is not the first person I'd go to. Goodness, no. A pastor is the first person I'd go to, or even my parents in the sanctity and privacy of my own home. I mean there's also this one thing that exists, I forget what it's called, oh right the FUCKING INTERNET. You may come across anti-semitic troll from time-to-time, but you ultimately get your questions answered. Personally, I wouldn't even feel comfortable asking a religious question to a high school teacher. I'd be smart enough to understand that there's a group of social boundaries you don't cross. Secondly, now let's say I'm a the religious teacher, and a student asks me about Jesus. If it's in the middle of class, I refute the question. If it's not pertaining to what's on the damn chalkboard, I refute it or perhaps pull the student aside for a private chat after class where none of the easily-offended, pee-pants, window lickers would hear me. I would not stop class to start thumping the Bible at the non-believers. That is not only wrong, that just doesn't work. You wonder why you have such a hard time convincing people when you tote your beliefs so aggressively.
Alright, so I've dug myself into a pretty deep hole, so I'll shamelessly escape from it right now. Between the two movies, you tend to get the message that believers are the victims and that non-believers are the sinister oppressors of their beliefs. While I can see that, I've seen plenty of other stuff in the news and on various websites that could also give proof to the contrary as well. So...who are the real victims? Believers or non-believers? It's a touchy subject and I don't really care to debate it here. I only posed the question for your personal pondering. Jokingly, I'll say both because of God's Not Dead and now God's Not Dead 2. Neither side deserved to be punished with these unGodly excuses for motion pictures. You'd get a better response if you made a two-minute YouTube video of Jesus Christ walking over, dropping his pants and farting on a snare drum, and then autotuning it to sound like "O Come All Ye Faithful". I'd watch that a hundred times over. I wouldn't necessarily pay full-price admission for it, but it's some free entertainment I could enjoy on a spiritual level.
FINAL THOUGHT
<* out of ***** = ZERO out of 5 stars.
The fact they didn't learn anything the first time is absolutely heartbreaking. I've already given you a good spiel on God's Not Dead, so doing a good spiel on God's Not Dead 2 is next-to-impossible. The atheist characters are carbon-copies of the first movie's even though they're completely different actors, characters and personalities. Melissa Joan Hart, Ray Wise, and Ernie Hudson try their absolute damnedest to bring you compelling performances, but as usual the atmosphere and tone suck out all believable things and you're once again left with a half-assed propaganda film that's over-the-top, cheesy, stupid, ridiculous, unbelievable, and most of all, dangerous to the human mind...among other things.
They missed a glorious opportunity to score some comedy points. Instead of naming it God's Not Dead 2, which is totally just not trying, they could've named it God's Still Not Dead, God Will Not Die, God Will Not Be Denied. At the very least, stick in some compelling subtitles, like God's Not Dead 2: Cry Unto This Sequel, God's Not Dead 2: Hell Hath No Fury Like Sabrina Scorned, or even God's Not Dead 2: O Come All Ye Boredom.
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