The year 2014 saw the success of
the Christian movie God’s Not Dead. This film told the story of a student
debating with this philosophy professor about the existence of God. Now, I’m not going to go on about the movie
beyond that since I already did a review about the movie, which can be seen
here. In a movie where Sabrina the Teenage Witch is put on trial with Commissioner Gordon prosecuting and Winston Zeddemore presiding over the court,the question I want to address is
does God’s Not Dead 2 continue to
reinforce the ignorance and anger of the first one or does it try to learn from
the sins of its predecessor?
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Warning: Spoilers Ahead
Synopsis
God’s Not Dead 2 tells the story of Grace Wesley (Melissa Joan
Hart), a high school history teacher whose career is on the line and faith put
to the test after answering a student’s question during class about Jesus. With the help of her lawyer (Jesse Metcalfe),
Grace must defend her faith from prosecutor Pete Kane (Ray Wise), in a trial
that not only will have her career at risk.
Along the way we are reunited with Martin – the Chinese student who
converted to Christianity –, Amy – the left-wing blogger who was diagnosed with
cancer –, and Reverends Dave and Jude, each finding themselves a part of the
trial (Cronk 2016) .
Story
I have to say, God’s Not Dead 2 is very much an
improvement from the first. The main
plot panned out mostly how I expected and the side stories generally worked
well with the story. This can be noticed
in the cases of Martin and Amy. Both
plots dealt with the characters trying to understand their faith in some way –
Amy questioning it after finding out that her cancer is in remission and Martin
trying to understand his faith more.
Unlike in God’s Not Dead, both
Amy and Martin serve some form of purpose to the main plot by helping Brooke
cope with the situation and eventually come to accept Christ. It’s through their interaction with one of
the main protagonists that Martin and Amy are able to fit into the main plot
while having their stories come to a resolution.
While the main plots and side
stories worked together, there were exceptions.
This was in the case of the side story with the pastors and the sudden
subpoena for their sermons from the last three months by the government. It went nowhere for one thing and it felt
like it was trying portraying it as the government is out to get
Christians. It is an inaccurate
statement and participates in making the movie to be a straw-man story of
Christian persecution in modern times.
At the same time, the movie
tries to straw-man the story with making what should be an issue with school
policy and the improper dismissal of a teacher into a story where faith is on
trial and that Grace’s trial is just the tipping point of some huge conspiracy
of religious oppression. Now I've seen this argument made in Inherit the Wind but being made by science, but this was meant to establish the characters and it was a movie more about egos at war with one another than God vs. Science. This movie, it takes what should be a movie that could provoke discussion
Characters and Actors
Much
like the last movie, the characters seem just as flat. We see the religious victim, the maniacal
villain, the determined young lawyer and so on.
I felt like there could have been more done with these characters, which
was a shame.
Also, just like God’s Not Dead, the actors definitely
did their best with what they were given.
I have to say my favourites were Melissa Joan Hart and Ray Wise for
their roles of Grace Wesley and Pete Kane, respectively. Hart was able to portray a person who is
cemented in their beliefs and was able to show that even the most devout can
still feel the pressure of the situation.
Hart’s Grace is someone who believes very much in God and will stand by
it, even though everything she has is at stake.
Just as a side note. I demand there be a spin off with Reverends
Dave and Jude. Though I didn't laugh out
loud to their shenanigans, Dave and Jude are quite likeable and do give an
impression of people who care very much for God and those who are in need of
help. They would definitely be
characters I would very much love to see in their own movie or show
.
Closing
At the start of this review, I
said that I wanted to determine if God’s
Not Dead 2 is as bad or worse
than its predecessor is. I have to say
that this movie is an improvement from the first. The writers seemed to learn to make the side
stories more relevant and connected to the overall plot and the editing was
much better done. That said, it continues
to try to portray Christians as victims of some conspiracy that is out to get
them and make those who are non-believers to be inhuman and cruel beings. Evangelism can bring out the best in Christianity (love compassion, passion, etc...), but this movie shows the ugly side of it (ignorance, bigotry, etc...). There is no war on religion, only ignorants kicking up dirt. For those reasons, I can’t call this a good
movie. Better than the first one, but in
need of much improvement.
