Keep in mind, I did say "try."
Nebraska native and pastor Todd Burpo lives a relatively good and calm life. In between time spent preaching at Sunday services, he plays softball with his friends and other churchgoers, takes his family for fun trips in and out of town, and is generally loved by all around him. One evening, his youngest son, Colton Burpo, goes in for sudden and unexpected emergency surgery. Once out, Colton begins to describe events of seeing Jesus Christ himself, and even brings up knowledge from Todd's own past that was never disclosed to his son. Perturbed and amazed, the pastor attempts to understand and share his son's unbelievable, yet possibly true story with the rest of the world.
If you aren't familiar with the concept and reportedly "true" story behind the rather oddly-titled Heaven Is For Real, you'd assume that it's actually a hilariously-titled Christian Hip-Hop record. Sadly, I think that idea would have made for a more compelling result than what I ended up watching recently. True, Heaven isn't necessarily a terrible film, but it drowns under its own layers of schmaltz, topped with a heaping dose of utter boredom.
Of the two pictures I'm choosing to talk about today, I feel like this one contained the more relevant of casts. For starters, Academy Award nominee Greg Kinnear plays Pastor Burpo (try saying that character's name and refrain from laughing. Trust me, it isn't particularly easy), and while he certainly seems to be trying his best for a motion picture with a very niche fanbase, he speaks like he was kicked out of a TED Talks taping because he was constantly spouting gibberish and nonsensical jargon. When he isn't busy acting like an odd fellow, he acts like an ignorant asshole, even going so far as to flat out say to a gathering of people that his son was most likely seeing things, and thusly could not have caught even a slight peek of the afterlife. This wouldn't be such a big issue had his son not been in the same room and it wasn't in HIS OWN CHURCH while these statements were uttered. Furthermore, it doesn't help that most of his supporting cast seems to have learned how to act by pulling their lessons out of a Cracker Jack box. And oh boy, if you'd like to talk about acting, I was absolutely perplexed by Thomas Haden Church's presence in a film like this. Perhaps this was karma and/or payback for 2007's Spider-Man 3? Again, Church is a fine actor (and also a fellow Academy Award nominee), and is also attempting to salvage what he can, but he doesn't have much time to show that his character, a man who has been Burpo's close friend for many years, has any layers, or even evolves or devolves with certain events going on around him. Kelly Reilly of Sherlock Holmes and Above Suspicion fame plays Kinnear's wife, and what the English actress lacks in screen time, she more than makes up for by emoting far too much or too little, and the woman loses her American accent towards the final act. All of this negativity and mediocrity seems to affect son Colton as well, and there are times when the young man looks legitimately embarrassed to be in a movie that even the Lifetime Network would have hesitations with airing.
Let's move on to the main gist of Heaven Is For Real. I felt like it just doesn't do much in the way of interesting plot elements and even moves at a rather sluggish pace. The most amount of excitement we receive is during the act when young Colton goes in for surgery, and one glance at the poster or plot synopsis from any site on the world wide web gives away anything that could have been truly rousing. Even the brief glimpses of Jesus himself remind you too much of the constantly disguised and hidden body of villainous Dr. Claw from the television series Inspector Gadget, though according to writer and director Randall Wallace, who previously helped write the infamous Pearl Harbor, the lord and savior looks like the absolutely sadistic and demented Kruger from Elysium (post-upgrade). Instead, the most intriguing element of this flick comes from the blatant shilling of another popular franchise. Throughout the entirety of this "true" story, an absurd amount of Spider-Man references can be found. This includes a closeup on an action figure during the aforementioned surgery and hospital sequence, numerous utterances of the character's name from Kinnear himself, and even a poster of his debut comic, "Amazing Fantasy #15," in Colton's room. You might be asking why this is a big deal to someone like me. Normally, the geek in me wouldn't have felt so besmirched by such a thing, but this Christian drama piece is distributed by Sony Pictures, the company who helped release The Amazing Spider-Man & The Amazing Spider-Man 2. I get that you have to help appease your masters, and I understand the need for advertisement in dire times, but considering that a trailer for the latter prefaced the DVD that I rented from the Redbox, it came across as incredibly juvenile and just plain annoying. It borders on Transformers-levels of douchebaggery and shamelessness.
So yes, I wasn't exactly fanatical about Heaven Is For Real, but save for my complaints about the shilling of ol' webhead and his own movie franchise, it did very little to anger me or register itself on the infamous "worst of" list. It mostly just drags on and on, and unless you're incredibly devout, I could see you getting just as frustrated for its lack of pacing and constant "maybe he did, maybe he didn't, maybe it was DMT" exchanges. Okay, the latter part of that quote isn't directly discussed, but it would make for a more logical explanation than anything else out there. I'm honestly shocked that this didn't go straight-to-ABC Family or even just the bargain bin and walls of giant corporate chains such as Walmart. I'll give credit where credit is due though: if you have friends, be they religious or not, it could make for a rather fun "riffing."
Ten points to whoever spouts this Heathers quote first.
And now, I feel I must take on a different, although only slightly brighter font, in order to put focus on part two of these reviews.
Josh Wheaton, a new college student and outspoken devout Christian, signs up for a philosophy class taught by the notoriously staunch and hardened Professor Jeffrey Radisson, an outspoken atheist. During the first day of class, Radisson requires that his students sign a paper which proclaims that "God Is Dead." Not surprisingly, Josh refuses, stating that he believes this is wrong and radically inaccurate. With his insistency that he is right and the new, young man is incorrect, the professor schedules a series of debates, in which the students will decide on whether the popular deity is real, or just a figment of our imagination.
Remember when I said that I was going to try and keep discussion of religion out of these two reviews? I am afraid that my promise from so long ago shall not last. It's a shame too, because I believe it is nearly impossible to judge God's Not Dead as a film by itself, solely because distributor Pure Flix (one has to wonder what they specialize in) are subliminally telling you that it isn't a movie at all. While Heaven Is For Real wasn't completely trying to force its own beliefs down the viewer's throat, director Harold Cronk's product which insists that the viewer should "never stop believing" is one of the most utterly disgusting and awful motion pictures that I have laid eyes upon since I became a legal adult. And I'm going to be twenty-nine within a month and a half.
Within the first ten minutes of God's Not Dead, you can count the cliches of Right-Wing Evangelical thinking, even if your own eyesight is faulty. First, there's the anti-Muslim rhetoric, based around a young woman attending college who is afraid that her father, and even her own family, will disown and possibly physically abuse her (which does occur) should they discover that she secretly yearns to become a Christian. This utterly stupid and naive ideology is made out to be even more ridiculous by her brother catching her reading scriptures on her tablet. She reacts in the same manner as you would when a parent catches you masturbating…..not that such a thing has happened to me of course. There are several occurrences of bashing liberals and animal rights activists, which includes an appearance by one of the cast members of Duck Dynasty (who have made it nearly impossible to live in the south if you're of the bearded variety), nontheism, and even cultures who aren't exposed to religion whatsoever (a young college student from China who has never heard of any of this balderdash). How incredibly classy!
I won't waste much time talking about the acting, because clearly they weren't making any of the performances the main focal point. If I can summarize it in two separate sentences, it would be these: if you ever dreamed of watching Superman (Dean Cain) and Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) play a pair of smug atheists with ill will and awful consciences, then dive right in. I personally didn't think it was possible for these two to sink lower than Meet The Spartans and The Dog Who Saved Christmas, but they surpassed my expectations with flying, vibrant colors. In terms of the actual characters themselves, there is not a single likable or realistic human being to be found, and more subplots that leave the viewer either confused or irritated, since all it essentially ends up being used as a giant advertisement for concert by the somehow popular christian rock band called "The Newsboys," who all resemble graduates of a camp that "prays the gay away." Even Josh, your so-called student "hero" of the picture, comes across just as smug as his atheist rival (Sorbo) once the debating begins. Thusly, I'd like to tell him to go stick his opinions, they of the "same old, same old" variety and repetitious apologist nonsense, so far up his ass that it comes out of his mouth. And ending your final debate with the question of "Why do you hate God?" is the ultimate middle finger to an audience with a remote amount of intelligence on either side of the argument.
Speaking of intelligence, I would love to hear about what inspired these writers (it took THREE MEN to write a script that any single individual could have written just by sitting down and reading one book in a public library or watching a video from apologist John Lennox) to come up with lines and exchanges that unintentionally captures the same aura and awkwardness of cult classics like Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Then again, two of these men also helped co-write the 2001 television remake of Earth Vs. The Spider, so expecting quality from this collection of human beings may have been like expecting gourmet pizza from Little Caesar's. Upon further thinking, there is a possibility that most of the dialogue was ghostwritten by Billy and Franklin Graham, with supervision by the thankfully rotting Jerry Falwell. Its blatant "Christians good, Atheists bad!" message is less subtle than being beaten over the head with a bible by a sweater-clad man with Christopher Hitchens' and Richard Dawkins' faces X'd out on the front. Afterwards, this same man proceeds to throw holy water into your eyes until you've gone blind. By the time you have recovered from your injuries, you're dealt a larger blow in the form of the main character's ostensibly offensive statement of "evil is the main weapon to be used by atheists against Christians." Oh dear lord. You're down again, but not before you shout this at the top of your lungs.
The only positive thing that one person such as myself can say about God's Not Dead is that in a very warped way, it did actually inspire me. I craved motivation to write more reviews, be they good or bad, as focus on work and my own personal issues had been delaying me more often than not. Thankfully, God's' own sheer idiocy and arrogance could be the cure for anyone suffering from writer's block, no matter your field. It is the first film that I've ever seen that made me wonder out loud "Gee, maybe those two movies I watched all of those years ago with the Insane Clown Posse as the leads weren't so bad after all!" My goodness, I really do loathe this film and every single human being involved in it.
Well, except for the two guys who hit Kevin Sorbo with their car in the final ten minutes. That was kind of awesome.
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