Review of Heaven Is for Real (2014) by Dafster — 25 Apr 2014

Heaven is for Real doesn't try and apologize for what it is. It's a story that says: "Whether you believe this or not, here it is". As far as the structure of the movie itself went, it started off quite fast paced and seemed to rush quickly through a lot of the parts that were more drawn-out in the book. An example is when Colton goes to hospital - in the book, this was told in much more detail, and showed the gradual increase in Colton's sickness, right up to the point where Colton goes to hospital. In the movie however, the hospital scene seems to come out of no where and is rushed through extremely quickly, creating much less of an impact compared to if there was more of an emphasis here.

I can say though, where the film lacked here, it made up for in the scenes with Colton's descriptions about Heaven. These scenes were some of the highlights of the film, and they just seemed to flow better in the way that they occurred compared to the book which felt more like a ton of questions and answers (To be fair though, they were very interesting questions and answers). One thing that I also liked more about the movie than the book, was that it really showed the families struggles going through hard times with the Church. Colton's sudden descriptions of Heaven really fitted well with this idea as well.

Overall, the Christian themes and values in the movie were something that everyone, Christian or not, should be able to relate to, and the story is one that I hope people will feel encouraged by, Christian or not, and for that reason, I recommend this movie to everyone.