Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I'll be fair with this review. While one-star ratings are very commonly the product of personal bias, this movie honestly deserves the lowest grade possible. First, I'll give some credit where it is due. While the editing is a bit sketchy, in many places randomly and unexpectedly cutting into the middle of scenes, overall the production value is decent for the type of movie it is. Secondly, some of the performances are quite compelling. Unfortunately, these are placed right alongside B-movie acting, creating a rather uneven distribution of talent. Honestly, that's all the praise I can muster for this film. My heading reads "absurd and despicable." Let me begin with the absurd. Warning: this review will necessarily contain spoilers. The story features a young Christian named Josh who is beginning as a freshman at a university. He is taking an intro to philosophy course as an elective. This film will also weave several storylines that are largely independent yet connect at certain points. I don't have the time or inclination to summarize and critique every one of these stories, so I will only touch upon them, focusing primarily on central story. Josh's philosophy professor, played by Kevin Sorbo (one of the good performances in the movie), coerces the class to write and sign "God is Dead" on a piece of paper, and Josh is the only one to stand up to this, whereupon the professor immediately reacts with great hostility and demands that Josh, then, spend the next three classes defending the existence of God before his classmates. If he fails to succeed, he will ultimately fail the course itself, and (so it is believed to follow) his entire academic career. After Josh's first presentation, his professor sneaks up to Josh privately and, with a strong element of physical intimidation and psychological abusiveness, threatens to sabotage Josh's academic goal to study law if he continues to make the professor look foolish in front of his class. By now, anyone with any grasp on reality will have seen that this is absolutely absurd. There is no university in the civilized world where a professor would force his students to write 'God is dead' on threat of failure. In the real world, this would result in immediate disciplinary action, namely, termination. But this movie is dedicate to creating the most comically inadequate caricature imaginable of a bitter, arrogant, abusive, overbearing, atheistic philosophy professor. It does so without reservation; it does so without shame. The professor is immediately abusive, he is always sophomoric in his exchange with Josh. (More of a minor point: the filmmakers seem to have this notion that "debating about God" is what happens in a philosophy course, or that that's the primary topic philosophy concerns itself with, which is ridiculous. Especially for an intro to philosophical thought course...students will typically begin with the pre-Socratics and move on in a chronological survey of Western thinkers...but this goes to further show that the writer has no actual experience in an academic setting.) There actually is no debate enacted in this film. Josh creates three presentations for his class, and Professor Atheist simply snarls and insults Josh at every opportunity, never engaging a single point of debate. If you go to this movie hoping to see a balanced presentation of arguments, you won't find it here. The underlying message is, of course, that there are no legitimate reasons one could possibly have for being an atheist (or non-Christian, for that matter). In fact, the film reveals the real reason Professor Atheist is an unbeliever -- he hates God because his mother died of cancer when he was twelve. Yes, folks, this movie is that shameless. Professor Atheist is a cliche incarnate. But really he's not even a cliche, not even a stereotype, because at least these usually have some kernel of truth to them. Rather, Professor Atheist is a mythical being that exists only in the mind of some Christians who are clueless enough to believe that the only reason a person can come to not believe in God is because of some painful past -- in other words, that their unbelief is not real disbelief at all but a masked hatred. This is, of course, simply a way of shielding oneself from having to engage in real reasons for why folks arrive at skepticism or disbelief. The real reasons are usually much more mundane: the person feels that the evidence is lacking, and/or does not agree with the metaphysical arguments in favor of God's necessity (arguments which, by the way, are largely lacking in any of Josh's presentations: undoubtedly because the Christians who wrote the script are themselves ignorant of the philosophical and metaphysical arguments). There are plenty of other problems with this film, which transition from absurd to simply despicable, manipulative, and at best morally questionable. Let me begin here by pointing out that every single non-Christian in the movie is invariably portrayed as a 1st class A-hole, ranging from the inexcusably vain to the borderline sociopath. All these people are caricatures too: one can simply refer to them as the Businessman, the Liberal, the Muslim (and Professor Atheist, too) -- names aren't important, as these characters are merely insulting, one-dimensional cartoons. The only apparent exception to the "non-Christian = a-hole" rule is Josh's girlfriend, who inexplicably, after a six year relationship decides to dump Josh after she finds out he went ahead with the debate despite her forbidding it, asserting that somehow failing a freshman course will destroy Josh's academic career (also, nobody seems aware that one can simply drop out of the course up to a few weeks into it, more than enough time for Josh to see the outcome of his debate...yet more evidence that the writer has no college experience). Josh's girlfriend turns about to be a total psycho -- BUT, it is implied toward the end of the movie that she was never actually a true Christian. Ah, the rule holds. Before getting to the ultimate affront to decency at the end of this movie, I just wanted to point out how tacky and pointless it was to insert some ducky dynasty guy and plug some dumpy Christian rock band into this movie. They were so out of place in this film that I can only conclude that they must have footed the bill for this movie. I can picture them demanding: "If we're paying for this, we're sure as heck gonna be in it!" "But," I can picture the director pleading, "the script is already complete!" "Don't matter, write us in somehow!" Ok, now about the end. *Big spoiler,* people. Professor Atheist, after some dramatic personal revelations, begins to turn around on this issue of faith in God. However, that evening he gets run down by a car in a hit-and-run and lies there, in his death throws. Kevin Sorbo actually does a very good job here -- if you have managed to form any connection with this character by this point, then you may actually be touched by it. So anyway, there is, dying an excruciating death -- his chest is (supposedly) crushed, his lungs are filling with blood, he's only got moments left and there's nothing anyone can do about it. But everything is actually alright, because the neighborhood Pastor happens to have been there, who convinces the professor to accept Jesus moments before his death. He dies. The Pastor's friend says this is a day for celebration, seemingly unaware that the man was just murdered in a brutal, painful way, his life cut short. Implying, of course, that it's all good -- it was, after all, God behind the wheel (might this unfold a whole new meaning to 'Jesus take the wheel'?). The moral of the story is: believe in God or he'll run you over with a car (or get terminal cancer, as with the neighborhood Liberal in this story -- yes, God is busy smiting many non-believers in this film). Ironically, this ending sequence legitimized everything the Professor had to say about God being a monster. It's almost as if the screenwriters agreed, but insisted with Benny in that old movie The Mummy (remember that one?): better to be at the side of the devil than in his path. Better to just surrender to God than be murdered by him. Now, the writer/direct is not content to merely have this character murdered. To add to the perversity, the Professor lies dying in the street just outside of the venue where all the "saved" and happy characters (including Josh) are rocking out to crappy Christian rock music of the aforementioned Christian rock band. So the joy of this celebration is paralleling and entwined with the murder of Professor Atheist. Yes, the ending was perverse, and also materialistic and empty. It ends with all the godly people just blissfully rocking out at a concert, which seems indistinguishable from all the other countless non-believers who enjoy doing the same exact thing. Putting these two together, we are left with a final message: Believe in God and rock out at a concert, or don't believe and get hit by a car. I'd like to say the movie had more depth than that, but it didn't. Its portrayal of "non-believers" was comically bad and it lacked intellectual integrity and sophistication, and yet if that was all, I would have given this two stars. I gave it one star for the ending, because it was ultimately gratuitous, emotionally manipulative, empty, and downright mean-spirited. It is ultimately an angry, mean-spirited film. Ironically, then, (yes, there's a lot of irony involved in this film), the people who made this film were more like Professor Atheist than any other character: manipulative, mean, abusive, close-minded. Also, for the above reasons, this is certainly not a "Family Film" as advertised. It contains sequences of despair, sociopathic behavior, and brutal murder. That all being said, for those who have no scruples who will dismiss this review as the ranting of a disgruntled atheist: I'm actually not an atheist, I am religious, and have deep respect for the Christian tradition. Not that such a disclaimer should be necessary, but I have to consider my audience.