Review of I Can Only Imagine (2018) by John M — 02 Jul 2018

I guess it is time to hear the story behind the song. You know that overplayed Christian song you sometimes hear in department stores? Have ever wondered how that song came to be? No? Well... perhaps this isn't the movie for you.

I don't know who exactly was asking for the origin story of the band MercyMe, but we have arrived here nevertheless. While I am admittedly not a big follower of Christian music, I can see why this song reached the wild levels of success that it hit.

It's catchy, it's articulate, and it is easy to digest. Just from how this is described, you can probably imagine how this is without even watching it: very Lifetime-y. Now I don't want to just dogpile on this movie, as I Can Only Imagine never reaches the depths of being offensively bad.

This isn't even going to make my bottom 10 list or anything, so you can go ahead and let that thought be a passing one. I'd actually like to start off on a couple of positives. Firstly, for a movie named I Can Only Imagine, they don't bash you over the head with the song as often as you think that they would.

They use it sparingly when I know that they didn't necessarily have to do that, and I that was something that I appreciated. Also, Dennis Quaid is a pro, and he shows up to work for this role as the father with demons.

He's the best thing about this movie (for me at least), and whenever he is onscreen, I was engaged. He makes J. Michael Finley (aka the poor man's Sean Astin) look like a better actor than he probably is, and Quaid deserves credit for that.

That said, when he is not on the screen, this movie loses points by the minute. The question is still there: does the creation of this song merit having a feature length movie? The answer to that is no, and this is really pushing it at 110 minutes.

If this was 90 minutes, I might have given it more of a pass, but probably not. The conflict is not at all subtle, and I really tuned out when this turned into preacher mode. That does not have anything to do with if I am religious or not, it just becomes very overt when it could have been more tactful.

I Can Only Imagine just feels manufactured in that artificial way, and I will call it out for that. Unless this song changed your life in a drastic sort of way, you can probably skip this.