Review of God's Not Dead (2014) by Guillermobm — 06 Dec 2014

God's Not Dead is filled with dull performances, stupid characters and random situations. 30/100 [D+].

I can't believe how successful this film was at the box office. Of course I know that a lot of movie goers are interested in this kind of religion matters, but c'mon $62 millions worldwide, that's a lot of money for a movie that cost only $2 millions. Anyway, it has a huge premise and it has Shane Harper in it, so I decided to see it. A few performances were likable but the whole film is a strange mess. It has lots of uninteresting subplots and most of the performances were dull, although I have to admit that at least the young actress Trisha LaFache and Disney's star Shane Harper were good during the film; that's why I give it a 1.5/5 rating, they both made this movie a little bit better; the rest of the cast is just plain awful.

The script is somewhat uneven because the movie kept me entertained at times, especially in all those power-point presentations that Shane's character had to explain; but there are several moments in the film where the dialog is just unbelievable, stupid and mindblowingly awful; for example, there is a scene where a girl tells to his boyfriend that she has cancer, and he answers: "Who cares?" or something like that I don't remember. I was like... are you serious? Who wrote this atrocious pile of crap? The whole movie is filled with moments like this one. Yes, it was interesting at times and it makes you think about your beliefs and the existentialism, but it is a shame that the film ended up as cheap propaganda.

The director Harold Cronk has no idea of how to treat these delicate themes and issues in his movie, such as: religion, abuse, etc. It is an empty, heartless and surreal flick. Although I enjoyed some moments with Shane Harper and Trisha LaFache, I just can't recommend it to anyone. It doesn't even live up its debatable premise, because the direction is so careless and the writing is uneven. God's Not Dead has some interesting power-point presentations very well handled by its main character, but it is sad that the movie ended up being cheap Christian propaganda when it could be a more thought-provoking film. It is a very pretentious movie; and the ending could not be more selfish, disgusting and ridiculous.