Pounds its agenda with the subtlety of a sledgehammer
|||GOD’S NOT DEAD 2
DIRECTOR: Harold Crank
CAST: Melissa Joan Hart, Haley Orrantia, Robin Givens, Jesse Metcalfe
CLASSIFICATION: 9 PG
RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes
RATING: 2 stars (out of 5)
BY Frank Scheck
Can we all agree, believers and atheists alike, to concede that God is not dead? It seems a minor capitulation, considering the reward will be that there are no more God’s Not Dead movies. Two years ago, the first film grossed an astounding $62 million (on a $2m budget), so it didn’t take a prophet to foresee that there would be a sequel. It comes in the form of the imaginatively titled God’s Not Dead 2.
Yes, we’re once again treated to a polemical drama attempting to demonstrate that Christians are under attack in the US, and are indeed, as one seemingly peace-loving character in the film puts it, “at war”. Dare to believe, the film suggests, and you will be subject to persecution. Be careful not to moan, “God, this is a bad movie” while watching it, for fear that the ushers will promptly have you thrown in jail.
The straw man argument involves a high school teacher, Grace (Hart), who responds to a student’s (Orrantia) question about Jesus by comparing his teachings to those of Martin Luther King jr and Mahatma Gandhi. She makes the mistake of quoting Scripture in the process, leading all holy hell to break loose.
The school administration immediately grills poor Grace about her indiscretion, with even her union representative turning on her.
When Grace refuses to back down, she enlists the help of a young lawyer (Metcalfe), a non-believer. He finds himself in a legal battle against the ACLU, depicted as an organisation only slightly more worthwhile than the Nazi Party, whose lawyer, Pete Kane (Ray Wise), is determined to prove that God is dead.
The legal arguments presented are all over the map, from Grace’s lawyer first attempting to demonstrate that she wasn’t proselytising before trying to prove that Jesus was an actual historical figure. Thus begins testimony by a procession of real-life authors, including a former detective who has examined the gospels through the prism of determining the veracity of eyewitness testimony.
This follow-up is loosely tied to the original via the presence of several returning characters, including Pastor Dave (David AR White); his African colleague, Pastor Jude (Benjamin A Onyango); journalist Amy (Trisha LaFache), whose cancer is in remission since she found God; Chinese exchange student Martin (Paul Kwo) and the Christian pop band the Newsboys. Among the performers who pop up are Pat Boone as Grace’s folksy grandpa; Ernie Hudson as the trial judge and the late Fred Thompson as a preacher who warns his colleagues that the government is demanding that they turn in their sermons for approval.
God’s Not Dead 2 will please its target audience. Everyone else will be left wondering why its fans seem to be suffering from such a persecution complex. – The Hollywood Reporter
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