Also took a chance and went to see God’s Not Dead – a religious film that they didn’t bother to advertise to me but is near the top of the box office for the past three weeks. Unlike many “Christian” movies, it’s a well-produced and reasonably well acted movie (this isn’t a slam on faith-based movies – they just don’t tend to draw – or can’t afford to draw – the best movie-making talent). It’s about a Freshman in a college who takes a philosophy class where the professor insists everyone writes “God is dead” and sign it and they will skip the theology portion of the class and everyone will get a better grade. The one Christian in the class refuses to sign it and is told he either signs it, takes a lower grade, or prove to the class that God, indeed, does exist. There’s also sub-plots about a pair of ministers on the way to Disney whose car won’t start, a liberal reporter who finds out she has cancer and realizes she has no one in her life, a Chinese exchange student who has to deal with all this God talk in the class, and a Muslim girl who is secretly Christian (whose dad beats the living hell out of her when he finds out she’s listening to the bible on her iPod… this was very disturbing and really offensive).

This movie is propaganda and I’m ok with that. I don’t agree with the “proofs” the movie proposes and it’s laughable how awful the atheists (and Muslims) in the movie are portrayed (and how default awesome every Christian is)… but that’s the kind of movie it is and I paid for the ticket. It just depends then if the movie is good or bad. And it’s not a badly made film and the acting is ok… but the various straw man arguments introduced doesn’t offer reasonable counter-arguments… and there’s a certain (major) unreality that only one person in the class refuses to sign – or even seems to have any problem with – signing a “God is dead” document (the kid outright states there’s 80 people in the class and not a single one of them would ever go to church… since there’s apparently almost no Christians in America… But, again, that’s the movie they made.

Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain are the only name-brand actors in the flick. Sorbo plays the professor and is pretty great at playing his ridiculously evil, sociopathic atheist character. Dean Cain wasn’t too bad as his ridiculously evil sociopathic (possibly atheist?) character.

Score: 72