So, without further ado, this is God's Not Dead......and there will be spoilers, duh.
What do I have to say about this movie? Despite my problems with it, I really enjoyed it. The main characters have decent acting and are strengthened by a story line that is surprisingly intriguing and more open philosophy-wise than you usually see in a Christian movie. They even kept the miracle factor to simple engine trouble. All in all, it's a movie that's intended to make you think and when you take it like that, you'll leave pretty happy.
In the movie you follow several story lines that circle the main dilemma of a Christian freshman college student with dreams of going into law. He suddenly finds himself facing down his philosophy teacher who basically says, "If you do not deny your faith for the purpose of opening your mind to my lectures you will not pass my class." Jerk. Yet, we've all heard several versions of this story before both fact and fictionally and we're excited for the smack down that's about to happen anyway.
Even though it is pointed out early that our hero could rearrange his entire schedule and avoid the teachers class, pass with good grades, and keep his girlfriend happy, our hero instead decides to take on the dragon that is Professor Radisson because he feels that God would want him to. The rather overly hostile professor challenges our hero, Josh Wheaton, to present before the class three twenty minute lectures to prove that God isn't dead, by which time if the class isn't convinced, Josh would fail and his dreams of law school would run dry. Super nice of this cocky professor to give the kid time to prepare and three whole chances to save his future.
Josh's presentations absolutely blew my mind. If the professor wasn't drawn as such an egotist, he might have given the kid an 'A' just for the professional effort. Seriously, it was bordering unbelievable. I mean, I know they have several scenes of him going through the library and even worrying about being able to keep up with his other classes because of this challenge, but come on. The guy is like a golden freshman. He pulled off three well researched and quality debates in under a week. The way he was presenting the arguments you would think he had started taking debate classes when he was in kindergarten. Not to mention advanced presentation skills with serious graphic design that most seniors would need a month to put together. Seriously, did this kid even sleep between the three class periods?
The main case of arguments between Christian and atheist beliefs are smart, balanced, well researched, and come with a broad range of references from credible sources. Thereby, in the end, leaving the audience free to decide for themselves whether or not God is actually dead. Though every other part of the movie screams "God is real!" the main part of the story surrounding the debates at least leaves it up to choice and leaves Christians feeling like they've been finally fairly heard. The debates feature the kind of dream arguments you wish could happen in real life where each side is represented fairly and nobody is interrupted or shouted down. True to character, the professor was overly aggressive in his counter arguments, but even he stayed well behaved enough for each argument to be presented fully. I'm glad the writers chose to give his character very strong rebuttals because that just made the whole thing feel a lot richer. These arguments, by far, were my favorite part of the movie. Unrealistic in presentation, but still awesome in and of themselves.
There's a few side stories and these were my least favorite. First annoyance was the fact that you had two characters who could have been twin sisters. It made it hard to tell who you were looking at in the movie. One was named Aiysha, a former Muslim who had been hiding her conversion to Christianity for over a year and eventually becomes a possible love interest for Josh. The other awkward character, Mina, had the wonderful role of being the young Christian student who was dating the seriously old looking in comparison Professor Radisson. Three kinds of wrong right there. Both women have long dark hair, almond eyes, eastern skin tones, slim forms, and similar fashion senses and make up trends. Unless they were in the same shot, which they never were, it was really hard to tell them apart and that muddled the story for me a bit. Another side character, red head Amy Ryan, had a well played side story, but it was more of a nice filler that illustrated an old Christian trope than was strictly necessary to the plot. Her jerk ex-boyfriend Mark had a similar problem with his story, but the part where his sick mother suddenly had a moment of clear thinking and told him off for his wicked perspective was pretty cool.
Pet peeve number two, the non-supportive girlfriend. For writing that was otherwise really strong, I'm amazed they wrote her character the way they did. Her sole purpose for existing was to create the classic love or God dilemma that felt as cheesy as most Christian movies are. As if publicly putting deeply personal feelings about faith on the line while your "respectable" professor eviscerated and threatened your academic future wasn't reason enough for Josh to feel conflicted about it, they had to add this charming character. I'm glad they bluntly told us about how they'd been together for six years, because that was all the chemistry these two had. Putting aside my personal feeling about starting romantic relationships at the ripe old age of twelve (assuming that like most freshmen, they are currently 18) knowing this fact actually helps me to believe her reactions a bit more. As anyone who has officially achieved adulthood will tell you, teenagers are incredibly self-focused. So having a girlfriend telling her guy that it's her way or the high way isn't that far fetched, but having a professed Christian girl tell her Christian guy that standing up for God isn't worth risking a wealthy future and then dumping him for it is too Tele Novela. They even threw in a, "My mother was right about you!" line. Her entire character was about manipulative control and selfish gain. Really dumb and really cliché. In other words, totally not necessary.
Pet peeve number three and the biggest spoiler, the professor dies. Before he can die though, he has a quick series of events that rapidly melts his god-hating heart. Talk about convenient. You have a change of heart and then don't live long enough for it to make a real worldly difference? How is this powerful or even a good thing? I know I've said he was a jerk throughout this review, but he was still a likable and believable character with mostly good lines and good acting. Except the elevator scene. That was just extremely awkward. Still, after building the whole movie up on the idea that he was a former Christian which makes him the worst kind of atheist, it could be easily said that he last minute converted precisely because he was distressed and in pain. He'd just lost the debate to a freshman, his Christian girlfriend had rightly dumped him in front of his colleagues because it turns out he's a jerk to everyone, he was revisiting old feelings about his mom dying, and then he gets' hit by a freaking hit and run car. The fact that it was raining just added salt to the injuries this guy was going through, though maybe the director was going for a weird symbolic rebaptism thing, who can say. Anyway, to me, it would have been far more powerful for him to live with the change rather than conveniently die right after. However, on the other hand if he dies then he can't fail our hero. Choices, choices.
If you don't mind over the top girlfriends and awkward Duck Dynasty cameos, it's not a bad Sunday movie and will leave Christians with little glowing fuzzies once you're done. Cuz, who doesn't like a good old theology smack down where the Christians actually win? Not the best movie, but not really deserving of the really low scores either.
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