Escape to the Movies: Heaven Is For Real - Doesn't Make Much Sense

[Elijah Newton]

Lotta Christian back-patting in Hollywood these days. Son of God, God's Not Dead, now this one... Okay, I guess that's only three (Noah absolutely does not count), but it's still strange to see that many of these, this close together, with this much actual screen time. Strange.

I lump weird conservative movies into this trend, too. "Dragon Day' ( http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/dragonday/ ) jumps to mind because it literally got a wtf reaction from me for crazy-ass xenophobia / technophobia? I don't feel like I used to see ads for movies like this ever. Maybe the production cost to make a flick is dropping?

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

read the synopsis for Amazing Spider-Man 2 and here's the gist: FRIGGIN' STUPID.

As for the movie being reviewed, yeah, seems like more Christian propaganda shlock. The utter cheapness of them is really what's so insufferable about them. Most of them look like they're made in someone's generic house.

 

[impocalyptic]

I had to go see this with my significant other. Bob's dead on the money with this. And I had to hold back laughter at the rainbow horse in the theater. The one word which seems to be hovering over the circumstances of the whole thing but is never said is masturbatory. "You believe in this already? Good! Because you're right."

 

[xaszatm]

On the forums proper, this will probably not cause much of a discussion unless maybe a random very Christian person shows up. But I feel the Facebook feed is about to be set on fire.

My Christianity level varies depending on what atheist or Christian people say and do. And how much I am thinking about my dead belovéd cat.

The movie looks very dry. And I really disapproves of people weaponizing or monetizing their faith. It's kinda contradictory to the whole point of Christianity.

Humans are corruptible and are capable of sinning and it's impossible to not sin (that's the Christian view). So, you will get movies like this and franchises coming up.

My take on the story based off Bob's review is that a Child who has been brought up in a Christian household dreams when he was under. Because his brain is full of his faith, it probably manifested as a dream that he "saw" as a message. The kid could have really been to heaven, but, I don't like how his daddy is making money from his kid's vision. So I am going to be cynical. The kid dreamt what was on his mind, Christianity.

When I was very ill, I hallucinated that I was designing Roller Coasters. I doubt that's a spiritual message saying that I will be the Roller Coaster Designer Messiah.

Film looks dry and dull. For other Christians, they might get a lot more going to Church or talking amongst themselves than paying to see this wallpaper paste.

Praise be to the Roller Coaster Tycoon! May his Parks meet the goal!

In all seriousness, I'm skeptical about the "I've been to heaven after a near death experience." Could it be true? Possibly, but more likely it is simply a hallucination brought about by whatever this boy is facing. This hallucination changes depending on how this spiritually raised. Like in China, people hallucinate that a secretary accidentally filled out the wrong form and is making the arrangements to bring the person back to earth (hey, they don't call it the Celestial Bureaucracy for nothing). As for the movie itself, it seemed bland from the get go so no surprise there.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

Maybe I'm just reading way too much into this, but if I were hired to make this movie and secretly resentful about it, portraying the preacher as failing to reach an audience beyond the existing faithful is exactly how I would go about taking a stealth jab at him and his movement. Just sayin'.

Lotta Christian back-patting in Hollywood these days. Son of God, God's Not Dead, now this one... Okay, I guess that's only three (Noah absolutely does not count), but it's still strange to see that many of these, this close together, with this much actual screen time. Strange.

There's also the Kirk Cameron vehicle Monumental that's supposed to be out one of these days. Excuse me if I don't care enough to look it up.

 

[Ferisar]

Guide us to your vertical drops of destiny.

Not going to lie, when I read this I definitely thought of some weird cult mass suicide, not a joyous roller-coaster.

... I think I might be afraid of roller coasters...

OT:
Had no clue what this movie was about, but kept seeing the title here and there and going "didn't son of god just come out?". Makes a lot more sense now though, since they're not really serving the same purpose. I'll take the advice though.

captcha: worship nothing

whoa captcha, calm down. You'll never take over the world with that attitude.

 

[ecoho]

I know its a slow week but dam. Bob I respect your opinion more then most but please stay away from religious movies (if you can I know its not always an option) because even how you handled it (which was very good BTW) this will end with bigots in the comments section on both sides.

 

[The Apple BOOM]

As a Christian, I have to say I agree with what most of this thread is saying. Most of these films are propaganda trash that have nothing to offer. They just preach to the choir a bit, and then proceed to alienate those who Christians are supposed to be winning over by using baseless arguments to fight a bogey man that doesn't really exist or something like that. I hear commercials for God's Not Dead on my Christian talk radio all the time, and it just comes off as intellectually offensive that they expect me or other Christians to buy this stuff when many of us have been to 'proper' universities.

If a professor pulled that shtick in a real school, not only would he probably be fired within a week, there would be a whole national blow up, and the type of person who is in that position is smart enough to know the consequences would explode in his face. I'm finding that mainstream American Christianity is getting way too tied up in Republicanism. Again, on my Christian talk radio station, they have a show every day at noon about how evil the Democrats are, and how Obama is a sign of the end times. Get over yourself and you extremist political views and actually talk about God, people. And I also say this as a right leaning person who considers himself a Libertarian.

 

[Zontar]

Well thanks for clearing that up, I was waiting to excitedly watch The Amazing Spiderman 2...'s review.

Amazing Spiderman 2 is released on the 3rd for North America, so it'll probably be next Friday he does it.

 

[Mossberg Shotty]

Being a Christian myself, I gotta say Movie Bob makes some good points. I usually disagree with his opinions, but the whole 'father just happens to be a preacher' thing can't help but raise an eyebrow. Besides, no matter what someone believes, I don't think anyone needs affirmation from a fifteen year old.

I'm not saying it didn't happen, I just won't be going to see it.

 

[jabrwock]

I assume the slosh of Christian fluff movies is because the mega-churches finally have enough monetary and marketing clout to get their vanilla B-movie ideas past the Hollywood marketers.

When you've got a bookstore in your church, you've got a captive market. Marketers LOVE that. If they can push half-assed productions for cheap and still get a great ROI, even better.

As for "who buys this crap"? There has to be an audience. I was attending a baptism in one of those mega-churches, and the bookstore was filled with bland "inspirational" books (both fiction and non-fiction), bland music, bland movies, and bland coffee. And the congregation was snapping them up like they were hotcakes dipped in bacon fat laced with Rockets. I didn't get it at all, but then I'm not the target audience.

The best I could get out of a friend was that the bland stuff was all ok for his kids because it was guaranteed to not contain anything objectionable. So it was safe for family movie night, ok for his kids to play on loop on the stereo, and non-engaging enough that he could blitz through a book on the beach without caring whether he fell asleep half-way through.

So I figure the (literal) busloads of churchgoers going to see "God's Not Dead" are no different than the throngs of people going to see an 80's alien invasion B-movie. It's all schlock.

 

[twosage]

As for Amazing Spider-Man 2, I've seen it. Bob won't like it. Mostly because of the reasons he didn't like the first one.

As someone who generally likes the direction the reboot went, I wasn't all that impressed either. There are just too many corny, cheesy decisions made for me to take it seriously and too many genuinely strong emotional moments for me to laugh it off as a popcorn movie. It's basically Iron Man 2 (actually, it even has the same "kid dressed as the hero stands off against the bad guy before the real hero steps in to save him" scene). Very uneven and disjointed, like a centipede with a dozen heads. There are good parts and bad parts, but it's hard to say if the whole thing is all that good or bad because it never stops feeling like a bunch of parts.

6/10

 

[Skeleon]

Ah, yes, the amazing coincidence of people having near death experiences appropriate to their cultural backgrounds and beliefs. It's almost like they're hallucinations based on what the brain has been taught to expect.

As for "preaching to the choir", well. It's not just happening in the movie. These movies are aimed towards the already converted, too, of course. Eh, if it makes them happy. These kinds of flicks are kind of niche, but at least they can predictably rely on their audience, I suppose.

 

[arigomi]

I can't fathom why they bothered making a movie if they don't have a compelling story to tell.

I remember watching religious movies during Sunday School as a kid and they were never this dull. Of course, my church was pretty progressive and we would also watch things like The Lion King and Clueless with a discussion afterwards.

 

[EmilShmiengura]

This seems more like a review for American Bob than for Movie Bob.

 

[PuckFuppet]

As for Amazing Spider-Man 2, I've seen it. Bob won't like it. Mostly because of the reasons he didn't like the first one.

I hated the first one, agreed with Bob on a lot of his points and still loved the second one start to finish. It was easily superior to Winter Soldier, if only because of much of a visible improvement on the first one it was.