User reviews

Yeah, it's a bad movie, but I was expecting something entertaining. Not like, "pretentious" bad. There's not really any message within "God's Not Dead", just an assortment of validated stereotypes. And even though the film seemingly debates the existence of an all-powerful being, it's really more concerned with extraneous side characters and the shoehorning of reality stars and a rock band. Kevin Sorbo's playing a personified strawman (before going full-on bad guy), which should give you an idea just how seriously this movie treats the philosophical subject matter. What made it hard to stomach was the syrupy tone; it felt a lot like "Crash", and that's the last thing I need with a movie about God.

But its real crime is the horrible pacing; an interminable two hours. This thing's a trainwreck.

4/10

It's impossible to review Christian films because if you're a believer you think this is a great film with a great message. If you're a skeptic or an out and out atheist you'll not view it kindly. Credit however should have gone to such items as Crash, Magnolia, and heaven forfend Boogie Nights because in terms of structure God's Not Dead most closely resembles those films. There's a bunch of stories with people all interconnected somehow.

But the main plot line involves young Shane Harper who is a Christian kid who is taking philosophy as an elective course. Instead of free academic discourse we have Professor Kevin Sorbo right off the bat wants to have his students declare God is dead. Harper is the one holdout and Sorbo essentially turns the class over to him, not for just one lecture, but for several periods where Harper has to get up and defend his faith.

Back in the day I had college professors, mostly liberals to be sure, but would never act like Kevin Sorbo does. Later on we learn in the film that he's got some deep issues.

As for Harper, he's told by the local pastor David A.R. White that this is an opportunity to go to bat for his faith. It would have been a lot easier to just drop the course and take another elective. In fact Harper is such a devoted believer one wonders why he's not in some place like Jerry Falwell's Liberty Baptist University or Pat Robertson's Regent University. Especially the latter since they have a law school there with guaranteed employment in the Justice Department when a Republican administration is in power.

As we all know Kevin Sorbo first came to prominence portraying that most mythic of pagan heroes Hercules on television. Another former television superhero in this film is former Superman Dean Cain who is a lawyer with one colossal ego. His part is almost a caricature, especially when his girlfriend tells him she's got cancer. What a comfort Cain is to her.

Christian icons like Willie and Korie Robertson from Duck Dynasty make an appearance. The finale is a concert by that most noted Christian Rock group the Newsboys.

As a non-believer, not an anti-believer and there is a difference despite the position this film takes I'm not thoroughly trashing a job moderately well done. Why though the existence of a Creator/Deity is automatically meaning that a fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity is necessarily valid. Or a literal interpretation of any religion for that matter. Harper even concedes that there was no literal 24/7 creation. I suspect that if he had tried to defend the Bible in a literal interpretation of the flood or Joshua stopping the sun, etc., things might have turned out differently.

One thing however did offend me greatly. David A.R. White is playing host to a visiting missionary from some unnamed African country. These are the same people who are currently pushing with glee and delight pogrom like laws against gay people in many African countries. Of course no mention of that in God's Not Dead, but I assure you that any gay people who see this film will mark it well for this colossal bit of hubris.

Technically God's Not Dead is not a horrible film, but people depending on their point of view will react accordingly to it.

... when he said the movies are a great big empathy machine. At least in this case he probably was, because this film is a great big stereotype machine.

I'll cut it some slack on acting and direction because the whole thing was shot in 20 days with probably a low budget. The screenplay itself, mainly focusing on the conflict between Christian student Josh Wheaton and his atheist philosophy professor, really has a narrow point of view. The film really paints everything with a black and white brush and makes assumptions about atheists - AND people from other faiths and countries - that cause much of the criticism of the Christian community in the first place. I know several atheists, and they are not all narcissists that abandon sick friends or people that blame God for some tragedy in their past. Many of them have a behavior code that exceeds that of Christians because they do not have a "ticket to heaven in my pocket" mentality which many Christians do have and I have observed.

Meanwhile, we get a look at what is supposed to pass for a typical Arab-American Muslim household, as dad always makes sure that his daughter Ayisha has her face totally covered when he drops her off at school. He doesn't seem to mind that she has on short sleeves and clothes that are just as revealing as her peers. Note to dad - the face is not the only physical thing about a young lady that catches the eye of young men. No matter though, because as soon as dad is out of sight. Ayisha removes the face covering. It turns out that Ayisha is a closet Christian, and when dad finds out he reacts as we would expect any Muslim man to react who is three times his daughters size - he smacks her around fist to face and then physically throws her out into the street.

Getting back to the film's main protagonist,Josh, he is now having to debate the philosophy prof in class as to the existence of God using philosophical arguments or else he will fail. The in-class debate part of the film was interesting, but I believe professor Raddison when he said they did not have pre-law at the university, because just about every action he took was completely illegal, from threatening his students with failing grades or at least greatly enhanced workloads if they did not write down "God is dead" on a piece of paper and sign it, to confronting and taunting the student Josh when he began to get his goat.

Josh makes a big deal during his portion of the debate about God allowing free will to reign on earth and that being the reason for all of the evil, and then the plot goes on to disprove exactly that by implying divine destruction of the ignition capabilities of every car that two random missionaries on their way to Disneyland touch (in one of many sideplots) so that they can be at a particular place at a crucial time. As one missionary states to the other "God has you exactly where he wants you". What happened to free will if these two are just manipulated actors in God's grandiose play? Other interesting points - apparently all atheists turn to Christ when confronted with death (a point the late Christopher Hitchens disproves), and exactly what is this generic cancer that the atheist blogger has? Inquiring minds want to know. Plus - filmmakers - I know plagiarism is the sincerest form of flattery, but many of us know an "I am Spartacus" moment when we see it (Josh's argument in favor of the existence of God causes everybody in the class to stand and say "God is not dead"). The great irony here - the screenwriter for Spartacus was James Dalton Trumbo, who just happened to be an atheist. I would say this film is worth watching as a curiosity if nothing else.

I was dragged to this "movie" by a Christian friend who keeps thinking that I"ll finally come around to her religious way of thinking. Jeez, it was worse that I expected. Atheists are portrayed as evil beings who "hate god" and are determined to convert Christians. Actually, atheists do not "hate" god; god is simply something they don't believe exists. As to forcing their way of thinking on anyone, the movie has it backwards. It's Christian zealots who demand that everyone think like them. Most atheists - those that I know anyway - are happy to let others believe as they wish as long as they don't force their "values" on the rest of us. As to production values, etc., the film is pretty basic. The lead actor over-emotes and the supporting cast of Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain look pretty silly. The plot is pretty much what you'd think. Thoughtful friends shouldn't let friends see this piece of propaganda: it has no basis in reality. As to Christians, knock yourself out. Like Fox News, it's been produced to reinforce your preconceptions without actually presenting another point of view in anything resembling a thoughtful way.

You know when a movie made by Christians is about religion, it's going to demonize secularism. It makes out that Morality is entirely exclusive to Christianity and that without God, there is no point in being moral, which is just ridiculous. It makes every non-Christian look either evil or stupid, which is just insulting. It is just propaganda, no way around it, it's trying to make Christianity look perfect when it isn't and it's trying to make secularism and any other religion look evil and immoral. It's almost like this movie was made Christians who knew absolutely nothing about their own faith and of other beliefs. It's a new low for cinema, it's upsetting to think that this movie was allowed to be made.

The ways this film treats all atheists is the rough equivalent of a film treating all Christians as Fred Phelps clones.

It's a thoughtless, unintelligent film whose only appeal is that it preaches to the choir. It presents the world in the most one- dimensional, black-and-white format I've ever seen.

And if anyone sees it fit to jump in and criticize me for being biased against the film: I have several friends who are very sincere and devout Christians. I have the utmost respect for their beliefs, and would never try to convert them.

THEY have even said that this film is the pinnacle of stupidity, and that it misrepresents their religious beliefs entirely.

Skip it.

I'm not a Christian but I watched this movie and I got a big kick out of it. Not in the way that the producers probably intended, but I thought it was entertaining.

Of course this movie is complete hogwash with conversations in the script that would never ever happen in real life.

OK, where do I begin? As mentioned elsewhere on this page, atheists, for the most part, don't "hate" God...that would be like hating Santa Claus. And the argument that one can't be moral without Christianity...gimme a break. Has anyone ever heard of Aristotle? He wrote a book about ethics long before Christ trod the Earth. And finally, no professor would ever act like Kevin Sorbo's character. Anyone with a truly inquisitive mind would welcome a debate and no, Stephen Hawking is not consider "infallible." You can't just bring up Hawking's name as proof of anything. Never been done. Never.

Overall, this movie is about bashing what the producers see as militant atheism and secularism. Richard Dawkins is mentioned several times. And why anyone would get their life's philosophy from a dude who sells duck callers on TV I'll never understand.

If you enjoy overwrought, wrong-headed religious melodrama with a sort of a dark and surprisingly nasty undertone, then God's Not Dead is for you.

I am not sure why all the reviews are so negative. This movie has been able to do one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed. It is so bad and ridiculous that it has actually managed to unite Atheists and Christians alike in being both offended and disgusted at the same thing. Do you know how difficult that actually is? Come on people, you should be happy that it one thing has proved that we all can get along and hate the same thing, arm and arm... LOL!! I mean this movie (and I use that term loosely) is so bad that it really has me wondering what the creator of this movie was thinking. I mean overly cliché'd stereotypes, mixed in with a ridiculous premise, coupled with even more ridiculous subplots. All culminating around the premise of a professor at a University requesting to do something that I am pretty sure would be deemed illegal and I have never come across or even heard of, someone making people sign a paper denouncing their religious faith. My favorite part is they then allow this kid to argue points of which in this day and age people can watch on any youtube clip, probably have already come to their own conclusions and doesn't answer anything on either side, in my opinion. So the fact that everyone thinks this movie is preposterous in a united front is quite amazing, and if that was the intent of the creator of this movie, then he is a genius!!

Kevin Sorbo gave a pretty decent performance as the atheist professor. Along with this, Shane Harper turned in a solid performance as the college student challenged by his professor. The multiple story lines which intersect in the film was a nice touch as well. Many reviews I've read are pretty hard on this film and it's plot. This is confusing as the title pretty much gives the thesis of the movie away. Taking the film for the one-sided argument that it was meant to be, I found it to be entertaining and engaging. I thought the interaction between the protagonist and the antagonist was plausible and the dialogue realistic enough to suspend disbelief and be taken into the story. I thought the pace of the movie was just right.

So first of all, in God's Not Dead, let's get this out of the way first: this is not how a college classroom works. As someone who has now been teaching in a college for over a year now, I've seen first-hand how students act and react to things, and more importantly how professors act. Maybe this character that Kevin Sorbo plays has tenure, maybe he's an 'untouchable' in Academia. But how this class operates - how he firmly puts it to these students that they must write down on the first day of class on a piece of paper 'God is Dead' and that counts as 30% of their grade - is just stupid and illogical off the bat. What goal is this professor looking for? Does he want a *sincere* answer from these students? The conflict comes that one student (named Josh Wheaton... like uh, Joss Whedon, I guess for some reason) challenges the professor by not writing it, not because of any logic about how a classroom works, but because he's a Christian and won't give in. So then an entire debate is set up - forget a class being taught or lessons - between the theist side and atheist side.

This isn't to say the movie doesn't pour on its message thicker than syrup on a dozen stacks of pancakes. But even having to think about this shows that the director and writers here don't care about having actual, human characters here. Not really. They have some kinds of shades of what a person might be like, like, well, words and thoughts and things, but there isn't much past: this side believes, and this side doesn't believe, and they really, deep down, don't believe because either someone in their family died (the professor) or may be dying soon (the reporter woman, who by the way gets a very hackneyed scene where an a-hole boyfriend breaks up with her after her cancer news).

It would be one thing if it was just this BS straw-man back-and-forth in front of a plastic classroom full of stick figures for these mouth-pieces to talk (and that's what they are, make no mistake about that, unless you're already coming to this as the heavily-converted). It's really in the structure of something like Crash, a multi-character 'tableau' that has some very minor connections to some of the characters - it all comes together, naturally, at a Christian rock concert in the last third. There's multiple crappy plots to go along with the main 'plot' of the freshman student and the professor, including the local pastor/preacher/whatever and a car that won't start (the rental car guy that comes is meant to bring the one 'joke' that falls flat), and a Muslim girl and her strict father, who we know NOTHING about and decides to go for Jesus and gets slapped and kicked out of her house.

Who is she? What about the reporter, who we maybe know a little more about due to her sorta-storyline with cancer and interviewing a guy from Duck Dynasty (huh) and then later in a prayer circle with the Christian rock group at the end. She has just the shades of anything like real motivation, past "I'm going to die, that sucks." And what about the professor's girlfriend, who is made to look like a doormat to her boyfriend (always an a-hole, even up until the very end of the film), and says she is a Christian but has little to really say against her super-Athiest-Dogmatic man? So many of these scenes, for all of the characters, are just springboards so that people can get into these arguments and talks about God and faith that are, for lack of a better or more original expression, preach to the choir: you already know coming to this that God exists, right? Then get ready for some mighty Christian rock (ugh) and messages from certain intellectuals in lecture-form about this. You know God doesn't exist? Or are unsure? Well...

There's no middle ground here, no other voice or nothing to make for any real spot for ambiguity. And even with the sense of these students really having their own thoughts or expressions in the class there's basically nothing (one student, out of the blue, quotes Richard Dawkins like she knows it off the back of her hand, at the start of a 101 Philosophy class, and another, the Chinese student, kind of a supporting character, has a moment with his far-away dad who says simply 'yes, the professor says God exists, He exists, go away'). Ultimately it comes down to the script for a lot of these problems, and how it's really, aside from having badly written characters and bad dialog and not necessarily bad filmmaking but bland direction (and among the actors, only Kevin Sorbo doesn't look there to drone on with little emotion), it's an anti-intellectual film. It's epitomized in the whole 'hook' of the college classroom, which is (to repeat myself) how a classroom works, on any level.

So near the end, if you're still enraptured by the message and praising Jesus as people become converted and songs are sung and the Duck Dynasty guy returns (?) then have at it. But as a film, as a story, with characters, and a meaningful message, it's as subtle as an anvil dropped Wile E Coyote.

Overall the movie was wonderful. I was hesitant to take my two young children, 8 and 9, but we decided to go as a family. I was fearful of taking them because they have only recently accepted Christ as their savior and was unsure how they would react to hearing arguments from the other side. I have to say I greatly underestimated their understanding. When my daughter informed me the star of the movie was from one of her Disney shows, I just knew they would be alright.

What was awesome about this movie was the realism. In my life I have come in contact with people represented by each character in the movie. Especially the narcissistic professor who corrupts data to get across a particular anti-Christian point of view. The scene at the house party struck me as a perfect way to represent the arrogance and corruption of a leftist educational system that self-validates their denial of the truths of our creator. Even the melancholy of the believer who doesn't know why God has placed him in a particular service was powerfully displayed by the pastor who couldn't get his rental car straightened out. And the attitude of his contemporary from a more challenging home land.

At the end of the movie my son asked me why do they hate God so much? It dawns on me that I don't have the right answers for him yet, but our family is thankful for a movie that has him curious. Maybe he will be of the generation that reverses that ugly trend.

God's Not Dead delves deeper into the complex reality of life for people in this postmodern world than its predecessors in the evangelical Protestant big-screen efforts. God's Not Dead definitely represents a step up in quality over films such as Facing the Giants, Fireproof, and Courageous. A higher budget brought an overall improvement in the cinema experience for the viewer. That and stronger acting and sharper editing drove along this evangelical Protestant film's most obvious upgrade to this reviewer: the genuine development of more characters.

Could that have been even stronger? Yes. Could it have been a bit more balanced? Yes. But I applaud the makers of God's Not Dead for exploring real human complexities, and that's a river most evangelical Protestants are reluctant if not downright unwilling to swim. In God's Not Dead, for example, we see a university coed raised Muslim converting to Christianity, and, while her father is violent in his reaction to learning of his daughter's conversion, both before that scene and at the end of that scene, we see a human dad sincerely striving to raise his children as best he can and his genuine disappointment over his daughter's loss of the faith of her upbringing. What Christian cannot have empathy with this father, despite a difference in beliefs? Another example is the sudden disappearance from the movie of a female character that played an important supporting role in the first half of the film. The reason for the disappearance demonstrates that while immersing teens in church youth group activities can be very beneficial in faith development, genuine and abiding faith is shaped through real-time life experiences. In other words, for this female character, her Christianity was as external as her overly thick makeup.

And many of the other characters were not left at the superficial level, we actually found out what made them tick, what drove them to be the way they are.

The classroom discussions over the existence of God can spur viewers, no matter their beliefs, to investigate for themselves and perhaps be less afraid of opposing viewpoints.

All that said, the movie's makers couldn't help themselves in forcing piecing of the puzzle by going to the evangelical Protestant "Come to Jesus" solution in unrealistic settings that stretch the imagination. That they left a few developed characters "unsaved" contributes to a more -- notice I said more -- realistic feel about this flick than about many others in this genre.

For the genuine effort made in developing characters and presenting a more realistic setting for people wrestling with the God question in their lives, I give God's Not Dead a passing grade of 7 and urge people to attend this movie.

I thought this movie was very well done and well acted. It was predictable but you should go to it knowing of course that it is has a message and a purpose. It is biased as movies typically. There is just generally less tolerance when Christ followers profess their faith. Overall good movie with a message . I have read reviews about the non Christian characters in the movie as being portrayed poorly. I did not see it that way at all. To me it it portrayed the Muslim father as a loving caring father putting out tough love to his daughter. The professor was also treated fairly as a non believer. The script Seemed well written and thought provoking.

I didn't expect to like this movie as much as I did. Originally a friend and I went to support the film, not really sure we would like it all that much. But wow! What a great story! There is more going on than the ads portray, with many different characters and situations of all kinds. There are some clunky scenes that weren't well-edited, but overall it's a good story not too far outside the realm of reality.

The acting was better than I expected it to be based on other comments and reviews. I've concluded that most viewers are over-rating or under-rating the movie, depending on their perspective on God. As a Christian, of course my friend and I had an appreciation for the subject matter, but as movie-lovers we also enjoyed the film.

And that student was.....Albert Einstein!

We've all read those contrived chain e-mails where a professor and student get into a philosophical debate, usually over religion or partisan politics, where the student "cleverly" upends the professor using some highly-questionable logic, right? Well, this is one of those e-mails stretched out almost two hours, with a couple of meaningless subplots thrown in and some free publicity for a popular musical group. Yes, someone took one of those apologetics arguments and made a movie out of it. The premise is built on a falsehood, but a certain sect of this country will eat it up.

Do not go to this movie expecting to be enlightened about belief or a lack thereof. This is just one 113-minute-long logical fallacy.