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God’s Not Dead

A lame attempt even for faith-based cinema

This rickety attempt to address an imagined campaign among U.S. universities to silence “true believers” is lame even by the already lax standards of faith-based cinema. The movie-long setup involves a smug, born-again freshman running down a list of talking points with an atheistic philosophy teacher who’s so clearly evil, I wonder why they didn’t give him horns and a tail.

He later gets hit by a car. All the characters are props. Legitimate criticisms of Christianity are ignored. Subplots target the godless Chinese and Muslims. All this and Duck Dynasty, too. God, if there is one, would be seriously pissed. Japanese title: Kami wa Shindanoka. (113 min)