Review of God's Not Dead 2 (2016) by Dustin D — 27 Dec 2018

God's Not Dead 2: God's Not Deader is better than the first. It doesn't have as many pointless subplots or characters, there aren't any unconvincing conversions, the plot is more believable, the acting is considerably better. In a way that makes it less enjoyable. It's a somewhat dumb movie that doesn't have the unintentional entertainment value of the first.

The main problem is the dubious premise. A teacher is dragged into civil court for answering a question a student asks about Jesus in a public classroom. While I understand the deep red state I grew up in is not representative of the entire nation, I had several teachers who openly talked about Jesus in my public school with no consequences. I think a teacher would have to go completely off the rails and make much more egregious statements about faith to get into any real trouble. This just demonstrates how out-of-touch this movie is. One of the witnesses against the teacher is the head of the teachers' union. In the real world if the head of a teachers' union testified against a teacher, her body would never be found.

What's the point of these movies? Protestants might find it compelling, but if this was supposed to convert the unfaithful, it was an abysmal failure. Are the filmmakers that out-of-touch? Or is this just made with a target audience in mind? Maybe the point is to look around the audience and feel like you're among the saved. These movies are preaching to a paranoid Evangelical Protestant choir, which to outsiders is simultaneously hilarious and alarming.