God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

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.

This is easily the worst of the series, but I still loved it! Part 3 didn't have as much unintentional comedy as the first two, but it was still damn near a laugh-a-minute escapade of truly incompetent filmmaking.

Much like the previous entries in this series, Light in a Darkness is a self-congratulatory celebration of the victimhood of christian persecution at the hands of evil secular societies. I imagine that evangelicals across the nation pleasure themselves without guilt while watching this and pretending that the premise is even remotely plausible. I get the feeling that they're unable to appreciate this film the way Zeus intended: as a movie so bad that it's good.

I'd recommend this to pretty much anyone who enjoys bad films. If you liked The Room, you'll love the GND movies!

Well worth going to see - but a little slow and more predictable than the previous movies for me. I imagine the hope is that the end was unpredictable for non-Christians who may have attended because of the previous 2. My daughter was moved so a 6/10 just because of that.

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.

Michael Manson did a great job as a 1st time director.

The first few movies in the "God's Not Dead" franchise were so corny. The antagonists in the first few movies were stereotype atheists and borderline cartoon characters. GND3 actually seemingly had real characters that had real relatable issues and doubts about their faith. It actually tackles the problems with Christian victimology without being too heavy handed. v

The problem with this movie is the that it has too many unnecessary scenes. There are boring stretches of time that could have been cut out.

Even though it has some serious slow parts I give it points for attempting to tackle a different point of view than the originals.