God's Not Dead: We the People

TL:DR: If you want a movie that is easy to forget, you will like it. If you want a movie that respectfully and philosophically discusses Christianity, religion in general and provides any intelligent and thoughtful perspectives, move on. Go and watch "Life of Pi", this is a movie that feels very respectful, interesting, critical and eye opening towards believe.

I really do not hate this movie. It is as mediocre as you can imagine it. It is not bad if any aspect is analyzed on its own.

The problem is the story and the plot. There is so much unnecessary filler, that it is hard to pay attention to those aspects. I also think that some scenes where only used to provoke an emotion that has nothing to do with the movie? Very weird.

There was also very little logic to anything that was going on. Some argumentations they used for anything were straight up from... Jupiter? Very little contact to reality.

I do believe that nothing was used respectful, was research or came from a philosophical perspective. No depth, just surface level... presentation? Discussion? I do not even know what this movie was trying to go for.

I would be VERY surprised if any Christian, Atheist, Liberal of whatever people use to put them in to some kind of groups, do actually have any feelings 1 hour after watching this movie. It is that forgettable.

The genre of this movie can be most accurately described as somewhere between dystopian and propaganda. The persecution complex is on full display, as is par for the course for the series. Essentially, this film is a scheme to generate as much money as possible by slapping the name of a franchise on a nearly unrelated film (which is hilarious, because do the filmmakers seriously think that this movie is gonna make any money?) This movie is just barely, and I mean only the slightest bit about Christianity. On the whole, the franchise should've just stopped with one movie.

"The future of religious freedom in our country" is the endless war-cry from Xtians who have decided that the USA is aTHEIR country, and that (a) there should be no separation of Church and State, (b) God actually exists, (c) it's our (i.e. Xtian) god, not some other deity, (d) making films with mostly erroneously-represented court cases in the end credits give credence to the persecution complex. Seriously: take the time to check the "evidence" to look up and READ through the actual court cases in the credits, and you will see that the persecution isn't there. Oh, but the film producers want you to believe that this is evidence of oppression. And that's the history of all religions: scant evidence if any, indignation leading to feelings of oppression, a declaration to take back something which was God-promised, and creating a them-vs-us scenario. What shameful trickery and deceit these film makers and actors are producing.

One of the worst movies I've ever seen. The acting was not convincing, the plot was contrived and unrealistic, background music behind each scene telling you how to feel was irritating, and the "look how progressive we are" pastor's rants are a slap in the face to the LGBT people who have been hurt (perhaps more than any other group) by conservative Christians like the ones in this film.

The third movie was awesome. I'm a Christian and I think love, empathy, and nuance are sorely lacking in these types of movies.

This entire series is laughable, but GND4 just takes the cake for the most preachy, unrealistic, unsubtle garbage yet to come out of what was Pureflix (has a different name now, apparently). I thought they would end this series and move on after the third one-which, I will concede, showed minor improvement over the first two films-didn't do well commercially, but I guess not.

The entire plot of the movie revolves around a non-issue. The government is attempting to force homeschooling Christian families to adhere to a specific curriculum or face fines; apparently it is these families and only them who are targeted, so returning character Reverend Dave resolves to take the matter to Washington to fight for Christians' rights that are supposedly under attack. Tell me, when have Christian homeschooling families ever been treated this way? No one is attempting to ban them from teaching the Bible to their children. It's not the curriculum being attacked, it's Christianity, and the film makes sure to continually drive that point home. Although all of these films wallow in a persecution fantasy, it's particularly egregious here.

The film also spews a gratuitous amount of pro America sentiment which, I noticed, is almost always spoken the loudest by people of colour/ethnic minorities. Case in point: returning character Martin Yip shows up to loudly praise America's virtues, after which he is forgotten about. His only purpose in the film is to have an immigrant vouch for how amazing the USA is.

Besides all that, the film suffered from the usual 'Christian' film issues: bad acting, bad writing, uninspired direction, the works. However, this movie stands out for just how ridiculous, unlikely and in-your-face it is. Not only is it the worst instalment in this series, I have to say it's one of the worst religious films of all time.

Hopefully the faithful will eventually start to demand more from these religious production companies so we can actually get some quality films.