God's Not Dead (2014) Review- By Michael J. Carlisle

Title: God's Not Dead
Year: 2014
Director: Harold Cronk
Country: US
Language: English

This movie makes my brain hurt. When German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that "God is Dead" in his classic work Thus Spoke Zarathustra he was not saying that God is dead in a literal sense. Rather, the phrase conveys his view that the Christian God is no longer a credible source of absolute moral principles. Everybody involved in this picture clearly didn't get the memo as we are treated to an extremely dumbed down version of Inherit the Wind. 

 In God's Not Dead college philosophy professor Mr. Radisson's (Kevin Sorbo) curriculum (wherein he demands that everybody write "God is dead" to pass his class)  is challenged by his new student, Josh (Shane Harper), who believes God exists.

I'm not sure if this film or War Room is the bottom of the barrel when it comes to faith-based Christian films. Kevin Sorbo does a fine job at playing the maniacally evil professor who dares ask his students to learn about Nietzche. His character is better off in a Tom & Jerry cartoon, but can't blame the actor for such terrible direction and script. Twists happen and turns out this guy has an agenda, he hates God (because reasons) and...getting a bunch of teens to write "God is Dead" will make it all better? Huh!? 

The film takes Josh's viewpoint and doesn't dare give the professor any legitimate critique of Christianity. God's Not Dead's viewpoint is that atheists are just a couple whiners and that it's fairly easy to convert them. If this is supposed to teach Christians how to use apologetics to evangelize, then it is pretty behind the times. Full of cliches and stereotype's, this is probably the most preachy (well, there is literally a kid preaching during the duration of the film) and immature "faith" film I've ever seen. 

I don't have an agenda here, I like Christianity/Christians and I even find that faith based films (Passion of the Christ, Last Temptation of Christ) can be quite great, but this fails on every level. If the only engaging character is the person you're supposed to like the least, then you're doing a very bad job. In suggesting that persecution is being forced to acknowledge others' beliefs, I give ye 0 stars.