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God's Not Dead 2 follows an ensemble cast (some old, some new), all flung into the sticky tendrils of a flimsy courtroom drama surrounding a history teacher and her answer to a contentious classroom question. Because Ms. Wesley (Hart) had the temerity, the gall, nay the malicious, impudent daring to draw parallels to Martin Luther King Jr. and Jesus Christ, the public school, teachers union, local government, and the ACLU are all out for blood. Will Ms. Wesley be able to continue professing her faith? Will she lose her job? Will Reverend Dave (White) finally be able to start his car? And did Tituba really see Goodie Proctor with the devil?

Okay let's dissect this bloated corpse of a movie by first highlighting the good parts. Director Harold Cronk has sure learned a lot since 2014 though some of the elevated crane shots and glossy establishing scenes may have something to do with a bigger budget. His ability to manipulate his audience to well up in a flurry of sanctimonious pride and self-adulation is not to be underestimated. Thankfully, God's Not Dead 2 doesn't outright vilify atheists and doubters like it's prequel; in-fact one of our heroes, scrappy attorney Tom Endler (Metcalfe) is an agnostic who doesn't become a convert by the end credits. Also as far as acting goes, returning cast member Paul Kwo is given much more to do than be a walking Asian stereotype. He exhibits a sincerity we never saw before and one can't help but think if the movie were about him, it'd be a hundred times better. Then there's Melissa Joan Hart who truth be told is a much better central figure than Shane Harper, who's pious college freshman was more weaselly than anything.

Yet what the movie gets wrong, it gets very wrong; starting with it's representation of a legal system gone rogue. While confusing and conflating basic legal concepts like "precedent" and "discovery" and "defendant", the film nevertheless aims its sights on drumming up accusations of religious persecution while playing to the very tired culture war clichés we've gotten sick of twenty years ago. Much like the film's predecessor, God's Not Dead 2 isn't based on any specific case of religious persecution. It's more cobbled together out of a few lower court cases taken out of context and those dubious Facebook posts your angry Uncle from Omaha wishes were true but aren't. In a side story, returning character, actual producer and Keystone Kops impersonator David A.R. White has to turn in three years worth of notes on his sermons to the government because of...reasons. While doing so he confronts a grotesque bureaucratic flunky who warns him in an exchange so over-the-top you'd swear the movie was hinting at a vast Atheistic conspiracy.

In response to the film being called an example of "fake persecution" by an Atheist blogger, White stated, "It's an interesting thing, because, if it wasn't real, why do they get so offended by it...I don't think it would annoy people if it wasn't true." Of course if we followed that logic every teething toddler at a Dennys would be considered a sage. Religious persecution is a big deal worldwide as explicitly stated when Reverend Jude (Onyango) warns Martin of his plan to preach the gospel in Communist China. Despite Christianity being the largest religious doctrine in the world, Christians are harassed, discriminated against and oppressed in many places all over the world. And yes it does sometimes happen in the good 'ol US of A though despite some limitations you can still express your religion at home, school, work, church, billboards, park benches, television, radio, magazines and newspapers. Why cheapen a very real problem with a false conceit? Especially one even committed Atheists and the ACLU would side with the plaintiff.

Thankfully the main takeaway in God's Not Dead 2 is something most people can get behind; we shouldn't stifle religion nor any exchange of ideas or perspectives, even in something as revered (or in this case vilified) as the hallowed halls of a public school. That message is certainly a cut above God's Not Dead's (2014) all Atheists are whining children who never got what they wanted for Christmas. With a door wide open for yet another sequel to this drivel, I honestly would rather hear the rabble in Inherit the Wind (1960) sing "Give Me That Old Time Religion" in a loop for two hours.

It must greatly frustrate the religious right when they are routinely (and unfairly) portrayed in major films as fanatical, sanctimonious, comical, backwoods hicks. Well, "God's Not Dead 2" is clearly their revenge. In this movie, ACLU lawyers are all sneering, oily, evil Simon Legrees. School board characters are all smug, administrative wonks who readily conspire to persecute the sweet, perky teacher. The faces of anti-religion protesters are contorted into manic, rabid, drooling hatred. And mainstream media are all resolutely against God.

There are only black hats and white hats in this film. (Or should I say halos and horns.) No quarter is given to the many nuances or complexities of this issue. Which is a shame. It's a serious subject and deserves better. But the producer and director had no interest in any of that.

Clearly, this film is unapologetically one-sided. Conservative Christians feel embattled and marginalized in an increasingly secular world in which they are repeatedly losing watershed court cases. They haven't had much to cheer about recently and this film hits back at that "unfair", "Godless" world. Consequently, Evangelicals will absolutely love this film. All others will likely never see it unless they're dragged to the theatre and handcuffed to their seat.

As a Christian, I quite enjoyed the discussion of historical Jesus from the researchers/authors who played themselves in the film. What's more, GND2 is cinematically well crafted. But it take's more than just dreamily uttering the name of "Jesus" to make a good film. GND2 quickly deteriorates into a two hour sermon from the pulpit.

Oh, and BTW, it should come as no surprise that Pat Boone still can't act... and neither can Robin Givens.

Just watched the movie, I agree with the sentiment that it was just as bad as the first one, which I also thought sucked but seriously, all these one star ratings because it offends you? Because obviously there's no other reason to rate this movie a 1 star. The acting was mediocre, the plot was predictable the complete lack of something resembling action was disappointing, however there was NOTHING in this movie that would justify it gaining such hate from you guys.

Sure it was a giant sermon wrapped up in a court room drama. Sure its agenda was extremely obvious and sure the actors weren't all A++ flawless but stop overreacting.

Firstly, I'm an atheist. I was raised a devout Episcopalian but I often refer to myself as a secular humanist & non-believer but raised with culturally Christian views. Having said that, I noticed right away at the scene in the history class that nothing Melissa Hart said actually violated any hard & fast 1stAMD separation issues. She was within her rights to share those historical facts. She responded to a question in a history class about historically specific correlations between traditions in non-violent protest and passive resistance. Maybe she could have omitted the lengthy scripture quote from the Gospel---but a sound argument could be made that even that was academically relevant too. So...IMHO it was quite relevant and legal. Remember...I'm not a "believer". No school board would take this complaint seriously. I actually think that the ACLU might have defended Melissa Hart!!! It's obvious that the movie makers are trying to unfairly demonize the "freedom from religion" crowd (a rapidly growing demographic BTW) as fanatically unreasonable and angry. In fact, I've found that the exact opposite is usually true. Just research the landmark Kitzmiller vs Dover School board case. As to the ongoing portrayal of atheists and liberal religious types throughout the film, it's an inartfully constructed "straw man" set up for the express purpose of getting easily knocked down. Poor Christians! They have a Biblical persecution complex and are happiest when they can imagine being burned at the stake by the ACLU and a shouting, un-Churched mob of pagan non-believers! Wait 'til you see how they depict the ACLU lawyers as basely motivated by notoriety, power politics and publicity. Not very good...and not persuasive. I think most people can see through this bit of evangelical agitprop whether religious or non-religious.

Sequels are the Achilles heel of most movie lovers. Sure the viewer gets to experience the same feeling they had when they watched the first movie, but it almost always never lives up to the potential. God's Not Dead 2 never has that problem because you simply can't get any worse than its first film God's Not Dead. GND2 takes everything that was hated in it from the first film and puts it right back in a second time around. Atheists are viewed as rude, demanding, and willing to go to great links to take away Christians religious freedoms. Christians are seen as innocent, content, and victims of the violent belief that is Atheism. Odds are if you are going into this movie you either wanted to see this train wreck of a film for yourself or being forced to go with your parents/overly-religious friends. If the later is this case try very hard to fight the urge to scream at the movie and run out of the theater because, trust me, it will happen. Overall the plot is incoherent, the characters bland and lifeless, and the overall theme of the movie is a slap right in the face to anyone who doesn't believe in god. You've been warned 1/10

What drove me into this film? Well, that is hard to describe since in English there apparently doesn't exist an equivalent word for the German term "Schadenfreude". But allow me to elaborate: I am a sucker for bad movies. I love the Ed Wood and Al Adamson flicks, Italian cannibal flicks, German schnitzel-westerns, Ninja flicks from Hong Kong, Greek porn-comedies, etc. I openly admit and repent not. Yes, I do own a copy "Saving Christmas" and watch every Kirk Cameron flick (again: "Schadenfreude"). I only realized that there was a sequel to the original train-wreck when somebody pointed out that "Batman vs. Superman" is only doing so well at the box-office because there was no competition apart from a handful of bible-thumping-flicks. So I took a pilgrimage of-sort (the only cinema that showed it was about an hour's drive away) and to put it into the words of the target-audience, let me now testify to what I hath witnessed and speaketh unto thee: Long story short (remember: this story prattles on for more than two hours, though it actually feels a lot longer): Melissa Joan Hart (best – and ironically – remembered for her lead in the TV-show "Sabrina, the teenage witch"; Catchphrase "Woohoo!") plays a high school teacher, who is suddenly overcome with that ol' itch and begins to sermonize to her students about her believe – in history-class, no less. The logic consequence ensues and she's given the boot, just as a math-teacher would get canned, if he began to preach that one and one is the Holy Trinity. But, unwilling to understand that a school isn't a church, she goes to court and fights for her "god-given" right to preach to children in a class-room.

Now, imagine that scenario: your child comes home from school and, when asked what he/she had learned that day, he/she replies that the god Ganesha has an elephant head (History-class), the basics of L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics (English-Literature-Class), the basics of Alchemy (Science) and Phrenology-101 (Biology). And that the P.E.-teacher was handing out communion wafers and splashed the students with holy water. I presume that most people would be like "WTF!?" and sue the school for all it's worth. So would any fire-and-brimstone-cussing evangelist. But we're not talking any old heathen religion (Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism, you name it), we're talking about the "real deal" – which may sound cynical to some readers, but that is exactly the stance this "movie" and its ilk takes.

Sure, we could argue that religion should be taught in school. Plenty of time for the kids to learn about all those countless deities, gods and demi-gods, from Zeus to Odin to Jehovah, and to heck with history, geometry and basic science. I can guarantee you one thing: By the end of the semester, those kids won't even be able to read and write properly, but will be convinced that people once-upon-a-time rode on dinosaurs and slew dragons.

Back to the film: of course "God is not Dead 2" tries to establish itself as some Anti-"Inherit the Wind". All the Christians are portrayed as saints and martyrs, thrown into the lion-pits of a cruel, unjust (and ungodly) world, which wants nothing more than to take away their crutch for reality. "We are the victims and everybody else is the enemy", is the prevailing message, and it makes it very clear, why many Christian fundamentals are considered the American answer to the Taliban. If this sentiment would have been around in the 1940's, surely a Nazi war-criminal would have jumped up at the Nuremberg trials, demanding that the judge "stop oppressing me!" And if you ask me about acting, editing, production-values and everything else that goes with a real movie: well, it's a two-hour-plus sermon, featuring either zealots or washed-up has-beens, happy to see the front of a camera. And sure, there'll be plenty of claqueurs, who'll clap and cheer this flick, calling it the greatest thing since Noah's flood, etc. But don't let yourself be fooled. It's trash, no matter how you look at it. Again, if you have seen "Inherit the Wind", you might remember how that film ended; hence, here goes the mandatory one point out of ten.

The entire premise of this movie is when melissa joan heart's character mentions Jesus as an example in class the resulting backlash lands her in court. The reality of the situation is that since she was not leading children in prayer or proselytizing, she is allowed to make references to the bible or it's characters in the classroom as long as it is from a literature-based point of view. Then the school might receive a letter fro the freedom from religion foundation or similar body reminding the that a teacher may not preach or lead students in prayer. She might be punished fro the school board, but it would only be the equivalent to a slap on the wrist, if it even came to that.

Just returned from seeing this movie, our family was the only one in the theater.... wonder how much of that is the poor reviews it's receiving... to be honest we put 4 movies in a hat and pulled out which one we were going to see(to appease all the different votes), after reading the views I wasn't looking forward to seeing this movie at all and when we got to the theater and the movie began I thought oh how boring..... but it turned around and I really enjoyed it in fact all of us did.... it even provoked a discussion of how God works in real life. We may not see how we affect others but always seeds are planted and all I can say is WOW!!! Go see it, don't let the negative reviews keep you away!

I really enjoyed God's Not Dead 2. I enjoyed the first "God's Not Dead" film as well. The God's Not Dead films are similar in that they deal with how God and the Bible are received in the modern academic environment. God's Not Dead 1 dealt with the issue from the perspective of a Christian college student with a professor that is hostile to his faith. God's Not Dead 2 deals with a Christian high school teacher that has to deal with an angry school administration. The acting in both films is good and the story lines are very insightful and creative. I'm very thankful that many different Christian films are making it to the theaters. Other Christian films like War Room, Mom's Night Out and Risen have done well and have shown some diversity in styles of films that are being released in the Christian genre. I hope more films like them are released in the future to continue offering moviegoers more options for what they can see on the big screen.

For those wondering if it's worse than the first one.... wonder no more, it certainly is.

This film is set in an alternate reality, in which the United States is run by smug, douche bag atheists. In this world, Christians are persecuted against in all aspects or life, Christians are all classy, attractive, happy, and non judgmental individuals.

Melissa Joan Hart is a teacher, she dares to mentioned Jesus in class, the establishment is outraged, she must be taken down. What follows is a ridiculous court farce, in this court, no one knows what the constitution is, and all those smug atheists have a serious bee in their bonnet.

I won't spoil the ending.... but needless to say, it is something more akin to a fantasy novel.

Some propaganda movies are valid pieces of cinema in spite of their propaganda due to groundbreaking advances in the art of cinema. That is why I can watch battleship Potemkin without sharpening my pitchfork and setting fire to the master copy. This movie... does not have any groundbreaking advancements of cinema, a story based on falsies and so much political baggage weighing it down so that if it jumped it would level Huston. Do yourself a favor and avoid at all costs, and if you see the DVD release... do the shop-keep a favor and snap the disk in half, as the movie in any watchable format would technically make the disk a defective product. If anything, if you know this movie is worthless, it could get a cult status as the room of propaganda movies. Probably not what the filmmakers thought but at least we would get a textbook on NOT to tell a story out of it.

first i want to mention i'm an orthodox and that i could not bear to see the movie more than 30 minutes.

the good guys in this move have a very puritanical presence. they seem so very calm and also seem a bit retarded. dialogues are very limited, predictable. they want to sound deep but end up laughable.

i believe this movie does a great disservice to Christians. the dialogues sound like members of a sect are talking. it makes faith look very shallow and almost weird. it makes the believers look very dumb and narrow minded.

lee me distill it a bit further. if i would not be a Christian i would think that Christians are a dubious sect, a little slow in the head and would look at it with doubt.

This movie is simply a piece of propaganda for "religion" that leaves God shaking His Head and muttering, "Oh maaaaaan?!?!?!?!".

These issues have way more complexity to them than this simple minded presentation. The fact non-believers are made into these authoritarian, fascist- lite officials is beyond suspended disbelief. That believers are somehow the kind and open-minded ones is also incredibly shallow. One reviewer wrote about the persecution she's suffered at the hands of atheists, but might I would like to see the evidence. I seem to remember historically the KKK has referred to itself as Christian.

This movie is a shallow and blatant attempt to stir up the worst in people for the simple purpose of making a buck. A complete slap in the face of true religious belief and God.

Is there going to be another sequel? Yes, please! The reviews are very entertaining! :D

In the film there is a stark contrast between the believers and the unbelievers. Likewise the same is true of these reviews. Several of them reveal barely hidden contempt for Christians. The movie correctly highlights the prevailing view of society that diversity and tolerance are to Bev embraced, except when Christianity is involved.

You know what's worse than a preachy movie that preaches to the already converted? A preachy movie that deliberately paints the opposition in a bad light to sell their narrative.

The first God's Not Dead was a stupid movie about a atheist strawman disguised as a philosophy professor. There was nothing there of merit and it was only there as an echo chamber for those that believed as the movie makers did. This one however takes the persecution a step further into an America that never actually existed.

Melissa Joan Hart plays a teacher who one day mentions Jesus in a historical context while in class. For this she's sanctioned, everybody loses their minds and the evil ACLU steps in to prosecute her. The fact that they got Ray Wise to play the lead prosecutor and had him play it as devilishly as possible I'm sure was just a stylistic choice and not a way of trying to paint the ACLU as a bunch of satanists. If you've actually checked the facts you'd see that the ACLU has actually defended Christians when their rights were trampled upon. But that's not good story telling for these people so they leave that out and hope you don't check.

What follows is a standard courtroom drama which should never have gone as far as it did in the first place. There's no statute or law that states that you can't mention the name of Jesus in a classroom. What you can't do is read from a bible or teach Christianity unless the class calls for it like in a comparative religion class.

There's also a subplot where Pastor Dave from the previous movie is on the jury and later on is taken into custody for not providing the transcripts for his sermons. This is the plot for the upcoming "God's Not Dead 3". Again this isn't a bad thing as it's there to make sure churches don't lose their tax exempt status by promoting a political candidate which they're not supposed to do.

In the end it's a predictable movie with a predictable ending that will have the Christians feeling good and everybody else wondering why they wasted money on this.

If you are going through mockery or challenges in your life because of your faith - this movie will strengthen it.

The life of the Creator/Deity of the infinite universe of time, space, and matter gets a second go round in God's Not Dead 2. In this film, Advanced Placement History teacher Melissa Joan Hart is suspended when she quotes from the Gospel of Matthew in answer to a student's question concerning Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. Somebody tapes the lesson and Hart's hauled up before the school board and then put on trial. For what I'm still not sure as this is not a criminal matter. Now what John Thomas Scopes was put on trial for teaching evolution back in the 20s, that was a criminal matter. All that should be happening here is a legal appeal of an administrative ruling and certainly that is civil.

I remember many years ago in New York City in the Bronx I believe there was a teacher fired for bringing up Jesus as her evangelical faith tells her she has to. She was told that she could not be talking about religion. With all seriousness and ingenuousness she replied she wasn't talking about religion to her students, she was talking about Jesus. That got her deservedly canned. Poor woman had not a clue.

The school board retains the biggest villain in the evangelical modern world, the American Civil Liberties Union. Ray Wise is a properly smarmy lawyer whom if he wore a handlebar mustache would be twirling it. Hart's lawyer is Jesse Metcalfe late of the revived TV Dallas and he's the hero of the piece saving Hart's job and right to her beliefs.

I brought up the Scopes Trial and those of us who've seen any version of Inherit The Wind remember that the judge ruled out scientific expert testimony about evolution. That's not what happens here as Jesse Metcalfe is allowed to bring in religious 'expert' testimony from some real folk playing themselves. I guess different rules apply in Judge Ernie Hudson's court. Mike Huckabee is playing himself as Fox New commentator and he's probably cursing the fact that God's Not Dead 2 was released after he called a halt to his presidential campaign.

The original God's Not Dead was a Christian propaganda piece, but in terms of the film the story was interestingly presented. This one played like a long episode story from the 700 Club. I'm sure it will play heavily on the Christian film circuit and will be rented a lot by youth pastors all over the Bible Belt once it goes to DVD.

It's a truly simplistic world these folks live in. They're right, the Bible is the word of God not to be questioned or given alternative interpretation. And those who don't believe are either sinners beyond redemption or a fertile evangelical field to be plowed.

Seeing the united front the kids give Melissa Joan Hart in support you know this is a Bible Belt community she's from. I wonder if there are any kids openly saying that she was wrong. God help them, the gay kids must be very deep in the closet there.