Good Lord. You don’t have to be a prophet to predict the release of the next movie from the line “God is not dead”. The third chapter in the conservative evangelical franchise, known for its uncompromising adherence to the combative position: previous films exposed atheists as some kind of demons and almost brazenly and shamelessly carried to the masses the idea “Christianity is good”. In the first film, God proved unequivocally that he was not dead through dialogues between a conscientious Christian student and an atheist professor. In the second film, a Christian teacher stands trial for daring to teach children religious things. In other words, "God Is Not Dead" is an interesting propaganda, at least forcing you to watch it to believe that such films even exist. And now on the screens came “Light in the Darkness” and, it’s even hard to accept, but the drop in quality came to the series “God is not dead”. The film is still a blatant propaganda of Christianity, and in some wild form, where there is only black and white in the framework of Presbyterian discussions among the middle class of the United States.
The action of “Light in Darkness” takes place in some universe from the fantasies of the famous Russian atheist Alexander Nevzorov: they say, a Christian can be sent to prison for refusing to share the texts of sermons with the government. And someone is desecrating churches. And the evil leadership of the university expels preachers from the educational institution. And in general, the characters are explained by the following phrases: “Science has replaced superstition, the Church has outlived itself”. The fact that the church has not outlived itself is the main argument for the existence of Light in the Darkness, although it is less dramatic than in the previous two films. In the main plot, additional lines interfere: for example, the story of a student who broke up with her boyfriend because of opposing religious beliefs; the reverend’s romantic relationship with a certain Meg. Moreover, the characters from the first film return, and Reverend Dave, as in the sequel, demonstrates the Messiah complex. In short, "Light in the Dark" strikes with its propaganda comedy; it is a film of the kind where a lawyer approaches a pastor during mass (!) to ask him to stop.
The problem with this film, like the others in the God Is Not Dead franchise, is that it doesn’t aim to defeat disbelief or attract more fans. Such naive films are unlikely to convince anyone of the adoption of Christianity as a way of life and worldview, especially if we are talking about the Christianity of the American kind, promoted by “Light in Darkness”. Their task was to strengthen the idea of protecting fundamentalists in the United States, which they somehow claimed as their property. The film does not hide its intentions, so it is unlikely that it will be interesting to anyone from the Russian audience: the problems raised in the film are not very clear to us, which ultimately reduces the relevance, value and turns Light in the Dark into a carefree low-quality drama.
I have nothing against films about Christianity: it is an important part of culture and it requires competent disclosure in cinema. However, it is difficult to imagine the viewer of the series “God is not dead” – except for some overzealous American evangelical fundamentalist. The third film in the line is much stupider than the previous ones in its premise and even more aggressive. None of the characters are sympathetic – they are just zombies generating negativity. Well, "Light in the Dark" is only intended to satisfy the tastes of a narrow layer of the film community - Christians who believe that they are unjustly persecuted in the United States, and, of course, condescending moviegoers who prefer to see a product subordinated to the formula " so bad that even good ".
2 out of 10