Review of God's Not Dead (2014) by Geopex — 26 Apr 2014

God's Not Dead paints itself as a serious look at the question of the existence of [the Christian] God. This, while an interesting premise, does not in any way come into fruition. Instead 'God's Not Dead' is a movie which serves as an insult to philosophy. Even the basic argument "God is dead." is a misinterpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche's well-known phrase, which refers to God not being held in much of any regard within the culture and society rather than questioning his existence.

The movie displays atheists as simply 'closet Christians who are angry at God', and does nothing to acknowledge the varying faiths and differences in the interpretation of the existence of a god, and instead opts to solely focus on the Christian God. Furthermore, anyone who is not a Christian is displayed as being an unpleasant person to deal with, to say the least, with the only Muslims being displayed being portrayed as physically abusive and oppressive. The arguments, of both the student and the professor, within the film, when they are even present, are based on such logical fallacies as strawman, argument from ignorance and ad hominem, to name a few.

Of all of the few minutes dedicated to the actual arguments on the subject of the existence of the Christian deity, there is no form of compelling discussion on the topic, and the focus of the argument is reduced to a few quotes from scientists (instead of philosophers) and one rant on the topic. The potential time for any form of compelling argument was instead used to focus on numerous side stories which served to contribute little to the story. So much time is spent on these side stories, which are unrelated to the main character and the central plot, that there is little to no development for the numerous characters introduced in them, and as a result all the characters are dry with little to no depth to them. The only contribution to the story from these storylines is to contribute to a rushed and cliche ending involving Christianity triumphing over the 'evil, secular institution'.

Overall the movie is a disappointment on what could have been an interesting take on the centuries-long issue of the existence of a god in philosophy. Instead the movie serves only as a feel-good movie for those Christians who want to see a movie with Christianity 'winning' against secularism, and who do not care about that movie having any real argument, character development or quality writing.

In short, the movie performs poorly in terms of its quality as a movie, and is even worse in terms of its stated purpose. I found the movie to be barely watchable, and would not recommend it instead of a recommendation on what not to do when addressing this topic.