God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness

God's Not Dead- A Light in Darkness feels different from the first two. Instead of the whole "Christians vs. The world" courtroom battle vibe, it focuses more on Reverend Dave and the fallout after his church burns down. Most of the movie is about whether he can rebuild, and in the process, it becomes less about winning arguments and more about dealing with grief, doubt, and fractured relationships. What I liked is that it tries to be more personal. Dave isn't just the confident preacher anymore - he's angry, questioning, and you can tell the story wants to show that faith isn't always neat and triumphant. That makes it more watchable than the first two. The downside is that it's still pretty heavy-handed. The dialogue can sound more like a sermon than a conversation, and the attempts at nuance don't always land. Sometimes it feels like the movie is afraid to let things just be complicated. On top of that, the pacing drags and some performances don't sell the emotional weight. I'd say it's the most introspective of the trilogy, but it's still stuck in that "preaching to the choir" mode. If you're already into faith-based movies, it'll resonate more, but as a straight-up drama it doesn't hold up.

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.

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.

I liked the 1st and 2nd one better. Too much drama in this one and everything just dragged on.

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!