There is a popular urban myth[i]
that tells of a young Christian who just started at a unnamed prestigious university. He excitedly goes to his first class but becomes rather concerned when the professor demands that all the Christian students stand up. He and several Christians stand
up only to have the professor quickly and efficiently convince them all that
God does not exist. Finally the professor gets to him, but this kid was
secretly Albert Einstein[ii]
and is able to destroy the professor’s argument very easily. The professor then
cries and converts to Christianity on the spot. Well, apparently someone was
inspired by this story and decided to make it into a movie.
This is movie is so bad that it’s actually very hard
to even talk about it. It has about seven plot lines all of which come together in
the most irritating way possible. It quickly establishes several main
characters most of whom never meet but are all connected in some way. For this
reason it is very difficult to explain the plot of this movie, as it has
several fragmented story lines that are only connected in a loose sense. A good
writer and director could have made this work but this movie clearly had
neither so instead it became a jumbled mess of bad acting and poor theology.
I’ll attempt to explain this by introducing our characters. The protagonist is
a young evangelical named Josh Wheaton[iii]
who wears Newsboys shirts and goes to Newsboys concerts and has a Newsboys
poster on this wall. This means he’s a good Christian[iv].
He goes to his philosophy class where he meets Professor Radison (Kevin Sorbo)[v]
who announces that his class is not an easy A and will be very difficult to
pass. He then goes on to explain that as long as everyone declares that God is
dead that they will all receive an automatic A on 30% of their grade. The class
of eighty all eagerly write “God is dead” on pieces of paper, but not our hero
who declares that he cannot betray God that way. He then agrees to “put God on
trial” with Professor Hercules[vi]
as the prosecutor and the class as the jury. This plot line is the least
insufferable part of the movie as they at least put a modicum of research into
their arguments so, while hardly great, they are at least not totally
embarrassing.
We then meet our other players and I really don’t care enough to look up their names. The problem with all these characters is that they are not people but rather caricatures of types of people. We are first introduced to an atheist blogger who interviews famous Christians in order to show how terrible they are. At the beginning of the movie she interviews Willie Robertson[vii] who gives her a sermon on how good people are Christians, eat meat, and say “y’all”[viii]. She then goes to the doctor and discovers she has cancer. Her boyfriend (Dean Cain) breaks up with her because their relationship is apparently based off of what they get from each other and getting cancer was against the rules. Next we are introduced to a Muslim girl who iss secretly a Christian and is beaten by her dad, a Christian pastor and African Missionary, and the atheist professor’s Christian girlfriend. These subplots go on throughout the movie and mostly are unconnected except in order to preach the movie’s message.
Ultimately Wheaton proves to the class that God exists and
embarrasses the professor. Radison’s girlfriend dumps him and he goes into his
office and reads a message from his mother where she says that she knows God
has a plan for him. That night all the characters go to a Newsboys concert
including Radison who goes there in the hopes of finding his girlfriend. At
this point the Atheist reporter meets the Newsboys and they convert her to
Christianity. Radison rushes to the concert and is hit by a car, but the
evangelical pastor is nearby and converts him to Christianity. He dies and the
pastor smiles as the missionary explains that death is nothing to be sad about
because their brother has gone home. We then see that the car that hit the
professor was in fact driven by Dean Cain who is the only atheist in the movie
not to convert. The movie finishes with Willie Robertson telling the audience
to text their friends the phrase “God’s not dead” followed by the Newsboys
playing their song of the same name.
The problem with this movie is not how badly written,
directed, and acted it is. The problem is how angry and preachy it is. The
movie consists of characters saying they don’t believe in God and characters
explaining that God is real and loves them, and then two of the Atheist
characters die. This is the problem with movies like this; it comes across as a
propaganda piece meant to convince all people who watch it of its message.
Worst still is the revenge fantasy that the movie seems to have. Two of the
atheist characters die and no one is particularly sad about this. In fact they
are happy because God used their death to bring them back to Him. There is a
certain smugness in the movie wherein the non-Christians are punished for not
believing in God and the Christians are all rewarded with praise and fame.
I’m not actually of the opinion that Christian movies
have to be bad nor do I think that the story concept had to lead to a bad
movie. The problem with this, and many Christian movies, is that it’s not
trying to tell a story. What it is trying to do is be meaningful and convert
its audience even though its audience mostly agrees with it already. It’s only
going to be watched by people who agree with it so it should instead focus on
telling a story that will be meaningful to its audience. Maybe instead they
should tell a story about a kid who goes to college and meets a reasonable and
friendly professor who does not share his religious beliefs thus leading him to
doubt those beliefs and ultimate choose whether he wants to remain a Christian.[ix]
I’m not saying that would be a great movie but it would at least be telling a
story about something that actually happens and it might even mean something to
some people.
I have no problem with corny Christian movies, I don’t particularly like them
but I’m completely okay that there are people who do. What I do have problems
with are movies that are perpetuating terrible world views and movies that are
trying to sell a product. God’s Not Dead is
not only guilty of an angry vengeful portrayal of non-Christians, it’s also
guilty of an insane amount of product placement. There are three things this
movie is trying to sell its audience. The first is the Newsboys; every
Christian in this movie is shown to be a fan of them, non-Christians hate them,
and significant events happen at their concerts. There are posters, t-shirts,
and albums with their name on them all over the place throughout the movie. In
this case this is product placement, because the Newsboys are not just some
group of people, nor are they a non-profit organisation, rather they are a band
that sells albums and concerts, and this movie spent an equal amount of time
trying to convince me to buy their product as it did telling me about Christianity.
The second product was the television show Duck
Dynasty; Willie Robertson is in the movie in two significant moments where
he delivers the message of the movie and talks about his show. The third
product is the movie itself; at the end of the film we are instructed to text
our friends the phrase God’s not dead in order to spread the Gospel. The
problem is that that isn't an innocent phrase; it’s the name of the Newsboys
newest album, as well as the name of this movie. Texting that to my friends is
not just annoying, it’s advertising, and if I’m going to advertise a movie and
CD then I should at least be paid for my efforts. And that’s the main problem
with God’s Not Dead; it’s not a
movie, it’s a really angry commercial.
[ii]
Most of the time it’s revealed that he’s Einstein at the end of a story.
If anyone ever ends a story with “and that kid was [famous person]" then it’s
fairly safe to assume that that story is not true.
[iii]
Not Albert Einstein; I was disappointed too. I’m not sure if they deliberately
named him after Will Wheaton but I’d like to think so. For most of the movie I
thought he was named Joss Whedon which was even funnier but alas I heard wrong.
[iv] This
is very disappointing for me. If I had known I was saved by the Newsboys rather
than faith I would have bought one of their albums. Actually I’m not sure I
would have, but I would maybe have thought about it.
[v]
It’s a really bad sign when Kevin Sorbo is the best actor in a movie. Dean Cain
is in it too but honestly he was just as bad as everyone else.
[vi] I
wasn't going to make the Hercules joke but at one point Sorbo does declare that
in this classroom he is a god, so it became difficult not to at that point.
[vii]
I had no idea who this guy was, but the movie was pretty clear that I should
have heard of him so I looked it up later. I guess good Christians probably
watch Duck Dynasty.
[viii]
Seriously. There is a brief tangent on how great the expression “y’all” is.
[ix] I
think Blue Like Jazz is far closer to
what this movie should have been. It was
far from great (It wasn't even good) but it was on the right track while this movie isn't anywhere
near the right track.
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