God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

With a new director the series now walks in a better new path. While the first two movie had stereotypical characters, especially regarding the government and atheists are abandoned. This time there are no "good or bad" sides since everyone had an argument to present. This film attempts to deal with the extent of faith which could mean that the studio itself could be apologizing for the first two movies. But the movie can still be shortened by removing a few aspects that drag on and it still cherry picks legal events to present its thesis. The movie is rough around the edges but it stands above its predecessors and thus worth to watch.

Okay, to all of my fellow Christians out there reading this, it is OK to not like Christian movies. Yes, their message is good, but it doesn't mean its presented well. God taught us to be loving, accepting, and forgiving...

But I'm sorry, these movies are atrocious. The setups are unreal, over the top, and in all honesty made to scare christians. They show that everyone hates our religion and is actively trying to destoy it, which there are some that do believe that, but chances are you're not gonna have to encounter that. So much money is put to a franchise that builds off of propaganda that makes every little thing in someones life extremely important and dramatic. A lot of pureflix films are as cheesy as Blumhouse horror films at times. Really look at the way its shot, take away the stilted acting, the way it's directed shows how terrible they are. Shots where we're supposed to feel emotional makes us laugh because they're so over the top and cringey. I know the actors are trying their best, and the younger actors aren't too terrible, but these movies aren't low rated because of everyone hating on Christianity. They're hated because they're actually poorly and cheaply made films.

Poorly directed. The actors seem fine, maybe a little stiff, but the director seemed very confused.

Odd subplots that don't need to be in there. Scenes and characters that don't add anything. Boring and pointless conversations that don't lead anywhere.

If the goal was to be as religiously vague as possible then...well done.

They were trying to be as inclusive as possible to not scare off potential non-Christian viewers and I guess the way that happens is they decide to take all genuine conflict out of the story and you end up with a boring lump that's equivalent to opening a random page in the Bible and trying to find some masterful meaning out of an incomplete thought.

Whatever. And the ending is atrocious

Despite all the odds, this film actually came out decent. Of course it is still heavy-handed with its ideas that the country disproportionately hates Christians and Christianity, there is still an underlying message of "We as a nation are not talking to each other as we should. We are screaming and not listening to other peoples' views". The movie does undercut its own message by featuring news pundits who espouse the typical "Liberals don't listen to Christians" but this is supplemented by several scenes where actual conversations, however brief, are had between these so-called liberals (read: atheists) and Christians. What the film does best is open itself up to be called out for hypocrisy with its typical "Christians are being persecuted" and, instead of chanting the mantra to itself throughout the film, actually turns to face the accusations and defend its stance. The Lawyer (played by David Corbett) and Reverend Dave (played by David A.R. White) are the main example of this phenomenon, and David A.R. White's earnest convictions are matched by Corbett's charming, needling lawyer character. This is the first time that the film series ever actually takes the time to establish a dialogue between these two forces that the film itself claims are tearing this country apart, and that sort of self-awareness in a film genre that seems eager to play the victim card can not be understated.

I would not recommend this film as anything but for the curious, and I would dissuade everyone from watching this until they've seen the first two in order to truly appreciate the level of growth that this series experienced in its writing and storytelling.

And coming from an atheist, that's saying something.

The first "God's Not Dead" was a two sided ego match between the good Christian student and his evil atheist strawman of a professor. It wasn't deep, it was actually rather hateful against anybody who was non-Christian. But like most Christian movies it wasn't made with the intention to change hearts or minds but instead to preach to the already converted.

It also made a lot of money so damn right they'd make a sequel.

And in some ways the sequel was even worse because it focused around a total non-issue. A history professor mentions Jesus in class and for this she's sanctioned, put on leave and needs to go to court to defend her rights. Meanwhile the evil ACLU, who have actually defended the rights of Christians to pray in the real world, are portrayed as hating Christianity for no good reason. I mean they cast Ray Wise as the lead prosecutor and had him play it as demonically as possible. I'm not kidding. They really wanted to make it seem like he was the actual devil.

It also made a lot of money so of course they'd made a sequel.

But somewhere between the making of the second and the third something changed. We actually got a real movie with a message but one that didn't paint atheists as being the bad guys. In fact Reverend Dave, played by David A.R. White, is seen as being a much more understanding and caring individual than he has in the previous movies.

The end result is a surprisingly decent movie with a Christian message. What was even more surprising was how so many Christians seemingly didn't go see this movie for whatever reasons they had, Maybe this only goes to show that they're not interested in a movie that changes hearts and minds but only repeats to them what they already have in their own minds.

And quite honestly, I think that's really sad.