Well,
here we are. God’s Not Dead: Light in the Darkness. What can I say at this point? It’s quite apparent that Pureflix doesn’t
seem to know how to prove God’s existence seeing as they’ve needed three movies
to do so. I’m not really looking forward
to talking about this flaming dumpster fire if I’m being at all honest but I
started watching these movies out of morbid curiosity and so we might as well
float on. So, yadda, yadda history of
religious media. Yadda, yadda, God’s Not Dead: Light in the Darkness is the third
installment of the God’s Not Dead
franchise by Pureflix…
What? If Pureflix can just phone it on this movie,
why can’t I?
Okay,
okay. I’ll be serious for a moment.
Does the
third God’s Not Dead movie improve on
the problems presented in the previous films? or does it continue the fear
mongering path of its successors? This
article today is going to address that question as we review the next
installment of this offending franchise.
(Spoiler Alert: It doesn’t.)
Synopsis
After
being acquitted of a charge of contempt of court for not turning in transcripts
his sermons from the past 6 months in the God’s
Not Dead 2 (it was shown in a post credit scene ‘cause logic!), Pastor Dave
Hill (David A. R. White) is a free man with a new set of problems. The Hadleigh University, the school from the
first God’s Not Dead movie, has
become antagonistic to his church and ultimately wants to remove it from the
campus, much to the disagreement of Dave’s friend and school administrator Tom
Ellsworth (Ted McGinley). Matters worsen
when a brick thrown through the church’s basement window brakes a gas valve
causing the church to burst into flames, killing Dave’s friend and co-pastor Pastor
Jude (Benjamin Onyango) in the process (we shall be touching upon this a bit
later). With things falling around him,
Pastor Dave turns to his estranged brother, Pierce Hill (John Corbet), to help
in the legal battle with the school to save the church. Just when things seem to be going the
church’s way, Pastor Dave learns of who committed the crime and decides to
confront them, ruining any chances he had of saving St. James’ Church and the relationship
he had been rebuilding with Pierce. In
the end, Dave settles with the university and sets up a new church while also
making amends with Pierce and Thomas and finds closure for the death of his
friend.
At the
same time there is a B-plot involving a student named Keaton who is at a cross
roads regarding her faith. While meeting
with the protagonist of the first God’s
Not Dead Josh Wheatabix (yeah, I know it’s Josh Wheaton, but I don’t care. Well, that plus it was a dumb name in the
first one and it still is now), Keaton decides to end things with her boyfriend
Harvey… it might be Adam (Mike C. Manning) going by what Pastor Dave addresses
him… I mean the movie does a poor job of
establishing what his name is and the character is forgettable and bland. Can we call him Steve? He looks like a Steve. Adam takes it well… in that he gets drunk and
hurls a brick into the basement window of the church window. Eventually, Harvey/Steve/Adam/[insert whiter than white bread bland name here] admits his wrong doing, he
and Keaton get back together, they both find the Jesus and live happily ever after.
Trouble where you plot it
In
God’s Not Dead is notorious for multiple plots.
Yes, it’s okay to have more than one plot in a given movie as it gives
the audience a break from the main action, but this franchise in general does a
bad job at executing them. The first one
had too many, the second had them all convolutedly connected, and this one has
only two plots and blows it in how they pick the weaker of the two as the main
one. The story of Keaton’s soul search
had great potential and I believe would have made for a stronger story. The problem is it wouldn’t fit into the over
arching narrative of the series, that being about privileged white Christians
being victims despite that clearly not being the case. Because of that it had to play second fiddle
to the main plot: Pastor Dave’s church being kicked out. While the main story does make a better
choice for Pureflix’s narrative, the problem that now pops up is they don’t
really do a good job selling it.
Just
think about it. God’s Not Dead sold its audience on a tête-à-tête between a Christian student and
his atheist professor who is using his powers as teacher to intimidate and
attack his student. God’s Not Dead 2 was the same in making it about a Christian high
school teacher who was being targeted by her school board for mentioned Jesus
in class. The common theme is Christians
as victims. The movie we are talking
about fails to do this. Hadleigh
University’s concerns were justified as tensions built up in the beginning of
the movie and even more so when the St. James’ church went up in flames. In a way the school was trying to deescalate
the situation by offering to buy the church, allowing Pastor Dave to find a new
site for a church. No one said it
couldn’t be near the campus just that considering the escalating situation the
church should be off the campus. Dave’s
response to the situation was also logical.
Lawyering up and countering the school’s decision makes sense since it’s
his church in the center of the conflict makes sense.
The problem is, there isn’t a sense of urgency like in the past two films and that in
turn makes the plot weaker than the others.
It feels like the writers behind the film were trying to avoid many of
the problems that faced the previous two movies but in doing so sacrificed any
quality in the movie.
Character Assassination
As I’ve
mentioned in the previous two film reviews, I love the dynamic that is Pastors
Dave and Jude. If there was a movie or
tv series of these two getting up to shenanigans, I would watch it in a heart
beat. There are two big character
problems in God’s Not Dead: Light in the Darkness. The first is in the choice
to kill off Pastor Jude. There is a
great dynamic between these two characters and Jude’s death doesn’t really add
anything to the movie except putting Dave in a more isolated situation. The only explanation that I can think of is that
the writers wanted to introduce Pierce and didn’t know how to write for both
characters at the same time.
Conclusion
In
closing, God’s Not Dead: Light in the Darkness is a terrible movie and not in
the same way as the first two. The movie
leaps away from even at least following the same themes that follow its predecessors
and by trying to correct issues while providing no improvements to the
plot. The film is also insulting to the
characters that have been already established by have established attitudes
completely brushed away and replaced with merely hollow shades masquerading as
those characters. While it is true God
is good all the time and all the time God is good, this movie and in extension
the franchise is most definitely not.
Sources:
God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness. Directed by Michael Mason. Performed by David A. R. White and John Corbett. USA: Pure Flix Productions, 2018. DVD.
