God’s Not Dead 4: We the People (Movie Review)

Plot Summary

Pastor Dave is up to another one of his escapades, this time standing up to an evil social worker, as well as a local judge, who wants to shut down a homeschooling co-op for not teaching certain curriculums. Thus, the only option for Dave is to take the homeschooling families to testify before Congress just as the government is debating a radical education bill that would take over all education in the entire country. Will Dave’s unhinged diatribes be enough to save the nation’s homeschoolers from total annihilation???

Production Quality (2.5 points)

Like many recent PureFlix movies, God’s Not Dead 4: We the People contains a fine production with few errors. Video quality, camera work, and audio quality are all either average or better. Sets, locations, and props are also up to industry standards. The only concerns in this section pertain to very poor CGI and some aspects of unprofessional editing. Thus, a relatively high score is warranted in this section.

Plot and Storyline Quality (-1.5 points)

With this unnecessary fourth installment of a half-baked film franchise that almost no one cares about anymore, the PureFlix team returns to their original God’s Not Dead and Do You Believe? roots by serving up a hodge-podge of politically charged subplots, smashed together in a salad of madness. This screenplay also calls back to the older days of PureFlix when their patented in-your-face dialogue, issue-representing characters, and absurdly childish villains reigned supreme. With literally no real-world precedent for a local government successfully regulating the curriculum of a homeschooling co-op, the writers of this narrative look for persecution under every rock while espousing a very backwards fundamentalist worldview. As conversations are used to dump one-sided information, culture war buzzwords, and extremist talking points on the viewers, We the People has the feel of an anti-Common Core docu-drama, complete with cheesy stock footage of Washington DC and quotes from President Ronald Reagan to fill time. While attempting to riff on and pay homage to whatever random and irrelevant hill on which the ultra-conservative Christian audience is trying to die these days, the writers of this “movie” craft overly contrived scenes and situations that are full of ridiculous coincidences and unrealistic portrayals of legal proceedings. It all crashes into a bombastic conclusion complete with an impassioned David A. R. White meltdown. Therefore, due to the propaganda nature of this plot, negative points are awarded here.

Acting Quality (1.5 points)

Although many cast members are average or slightly better in their performances, David A. R. White stands out for all the wrong reasons. Between slurry line delivery and bad phone acting, it’s hard to ignore White’s typical unprofessionalism. Elsewhere, some emotions come off as mechanical even though line delivery is mostly acceptable. Some performances are better than others, which produces an average rating.

Conclusion

This unwarranted creation is an embodiment of how PureFlix is being hollowed out as a company and replaced with better prospects. The noticeably shorter runtime and lower budget of We the People demonstrates the overall decline of PureFlix, once at the pinnacle of Christian entertainment. However, this dethronement is a sign of progress for Christian media, leaving the fourth God’s Not Dead film as just a relic of a bygone era that can remind us to never go back to those days.

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 10 points

November 6, 2021 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, International, Movie ReviewsTags: 2021, Amanda Jaros, Anna Zielinski, Antonio Sabato Jr., Ben Laurro, Benet Embry, Benjamin A. Onyango, Brent Ryan Green, Christian Stokes, Dani Oliveros, David A. R. White, Deborah Tucker, Drama, Francesca Battistelli, Gary Galone, Grayson Palumbo, Hadeel Sittu, Inspirational, Isaiah Washington, Jeanine Pirro, Kim Percival, Lena Harmon, Leticia Robles, Marco Khan, Matt Anspach, Michael Anthony Page, Michael Scott, Nancy Harding, Pancho Burgos-Goizueta, Paul Kwo, PureFlix, Shawn Boskie, Tatum Hatfield, Tommy Blaze, Vance Null, Victor Caballero, Vincent De Paul, William Forsythe 4 Comments

God’s Not Dead 4: We the People (Fall 2021)

Coming to theaters in Fall 2021 from PureFlix

Writer(s): Tommy Blaze

Director(s): Vance Null

Producer(s): Brent Ryan Green, Ben Laurro, Kim Percival, Michael Scott, David A. R. White, Anna Zielinski

Starring: David A. R. White, William Forsythe, Isaiah Washington, Antonio Sabato Jr., Jeanine Pirro, Amanda Jaros, Paul Kwo, Francesa Battistelli, Matt Anspach, Marco Khan, Benjamin A. Onyango, Hadeel Sittu, Deborah Tucker, Lena Harmon, Anna Zielinski, Vincent De Paul, Nancy Harding, Gary Galone, Christian Stokes, Dani Oliveros, Leticia Robles, Grayson Palumbo, Benét Embry, Tatum Hatfield, Victor Caballero

Plot Synopsis: When an evil government official inspects a homeschooling family and tries to shut down the home learning operation, Pastor Dave (along with some lawyers) is ready to take the fight to highest court in the land! Liberty and religious freedom (as well as PureFlix’s future finances) are on the line, so there’s a lot resting on this fictional court drama that will inevitably feature a Fox News anchor. Will PureFlix be able to successfully use the fourth installment of a half-baked franchise to revitalize their business model?

July 22, 2021 by amg16 Categories: Upcoming Movies and SeriesTags: Amanda Jaros, Anna Zielinski, Antonio Sabato Jr., Ben Laurro, Benét Embry, Benjamin A. Onyango, Brent Ryan Green, Christian Stokes, Dani Oliveros, David A. R. White, Deborah Tucker, Francesa Battistelli, Gary Galone, Grayson Palumbo, Hadeel Sittu, Isaiah Washington, Jeanine Pirro, Kim Percival, Lena Harmon, Leticia Robles, Marco Khan, Matt Anspach, Michael Scott, Nancy Harding, Paul Kwo, PureFlix, Tatum Hatfield, Tommy Blaze, Upcoming Movies and Series, Vance Null, Victor Caballero, Vincent De Paul 6 Comments

Hilton Head Island, Season 2 (Series Review)

Plot Summary

Following the critically denounced blockbuster debut season of Hilton Head Island, which is the world’s first ever Hope Opera, the second season appeared on PureFlix On Demand in a similar fashion as the first with no warning or marketing to proceed its release.  Nevertheless, the second season picks up at the cliffhanger where the first left off–only this time, the cast is smaller and the green screens are more obvious.  Daniel Trisk has woken up from his partially fake coma, and he’s taking the Isle News Network back over (as if anybody was watching it in the first place).  As he shakes up the staff and whips people into shape, we actually get some looks at what they actually play on their fake channel.  However, as usual, there’s a lot of trumped-up intrigue and fake drama that will have you rolling your eyes along with us.

 

Production Quality (1 point)

The second season of this ridiculous excuse for entertainment is just as cheap – probably cheaper – than they first season.  Although video quality is fine, the camera is constantly shifting around even though every shot is already as tight as possible to hide the fact that this nonsense was entirely filmed in a set.  This set was complete with a very poorly constructed green screen that gives the characters special outlines and sometimes bleeds through objects on camera.  The only parts that aren’t filmed in front of a green screen (there might have been one real set in there somewhere) utilize the exact same stock footage sequences we saw from the first season – including the ones of the false exterior of the network building that’s used about 4843928 times.  The rest of the stock footage has nobody in it, as if this island is completely abandoned save for our favorite main characters (some of which have already left the show).  Since the stock footage takes up nearly half of each very short episode, there’s little that can be accomplished.  Elsewhere, the soundtrack is cheesy and generic, and every scene feels like it begins just as characters start doing things rather than having it flow into things that are already naturally happening.  Finally, the introduction sequence was seriously made on Windows Movie Maker.  That’s about it for this section.

Plot and Storyline Quality (-1 points)

Where to start?  How about with the weird Christian worldview that earns this section a negative point?  As if Wink Martindale weren’t a bad enough TV preacher impersonator, we get strange lectures from the very white, awkward, and geriatric patriarch of the Trisk family about how Christianity is all about legalism and behavior modification (the token black woman gets to say a few things about this topic too).  All of the dialogue is overly dramatic, and Bible verses are used in bizarre ways.  In typical soap opera form, the ‘story’ is chock-full of forced and fake drama as the subplots fragment all over the place and as conversations are used to dump information onto the audience, especially when explaining where the missing cast members went.  There’s still so much going on here that there is no chance for any character or plot depth, as if the writers even knew how to do that in the first place.  The ‘plot’ jumps from one thing to the next as the characters are just stand-ins and representations of issues and circumstances.  Nearly 60% of the plot takes place in the context of phone conversations, and Christian tropes and trite lessons inserted awkwardly into so-called stories.  In typical PureFlix fashion, young people are portrayed in insulting ways as the series basically has no grasp on reality.  A lot of ‘good’ characters are questionable at being ‘good’, and the ‘bad’ characters are total strawmen to the point that it’s not even funny.  Basically, I think you can get the picture that there’s nothing good here and that there’s not even an ounce of potential in this garbage.

Acting Quality (0 points)

To say the least, this ever-shrinking cast exhibits some of the worst acting possible.  Line delivery is forced down your throat like cast members are saying lines through a strainer.  Attempts at emotions are like fingernails in a chalkboard.  A majority of the scenes appear to be one-take as cast members awkwardly stand around making annoyingly stereotypic movements and just mindlessly recite lines.  This doesn’t even cover the fact that this cast is extremely fake-looking, and the makeup work is atrocious.  It’s really no surprise that this cast is smaller than the first season (even Donna Mills had something better to do), but we can’t even do without Carey Scott’s stiff and wooden performances.  As a side note, most the time, it seems like Anna Zielinki is trolling – it’s either that, or she’s a terrible villain.  Further, there are basically no extras in this cast, which lends further to the portrayal of Hilton Head Island as a ghost town.

Continuity Quality (1 point)

Although there is some continuity between episodes, there is still little to no organization in this series.  It’s nearly impossible to accomplish anything substantial in incredibly short episodes that are replete with stock footage.  It’s also too easy to make mindless 20-minute episodes, especially when this second season is half the length of the first.  However, for all the die-hard Hilton Head Island fans, Season 2 provides us with yet another forced cliffhanger ending that’s designed to make you want another season (if they have any cast members left by then).

Conclusion

PureFlix makes garbage and just keeps trucking along.  You can’t fault them for having drive.  They try new things and attempt to pander to their audience for quick cash grabs.  Even still, I greatly fail to see the market for this ‘Hope Opera’.  There’s definitely an untapped market for good Christian series, but this ain’t the way.  This is the last thing you want in a Christian series unless you have nothing better to do with your free month of PureFlix On Demand.

 

Final Rating: 1 out of 10 points

October 11, 2018December 31, 2018 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Series Reviews, Soap OperaTags: 2018, Anna Zielinski, Antonio Sabato Jr., Brett Pipher, Carey Scott, Christina Collard, Christine Scholle, Crystal Hunt, David A. R. White, Jamie Nieto, Jasmine Wright, Jason Stuart, Jimena Crespo, Kenton Duty, Leticia Robles, Linda Gray, Mandalynn Carlson, Michael Swan, Michelle Thomson, Palma Lawrence Reed, Pam Pipher, PureFlix, Reign Morton, Robert McCullough, Soap Opera, Tim Pipher, Wink Martindale 14 Comments

Malibu Dan the Family Man, Season 1 (Series Review)

What DARW does best

Plot Summary

Malibu Dan and Holidae Sinclair run the southern California early morning show Good Morning Malibu.  Dan is always getting himself into comedic scrapes, while Holi is always looking for a better media offer.  They work with a goofy but likeable crew, but most of all, Dan considers himself to be a devout family man.  What else could go wrong in Tommy Blaze’s latest zany comedic endeavors?

 

Production Quality (1.5 points)

Much like Hitting the Breaks, Malibu Dan the Family Man is a sitcom with an average production, which means it comes with that annoying laugh track again.  There are also other sound effects used now, however.  Another annoying aspect of the sitcom genre is the use of ridiculously fake backgrounds and cheaply limited sets, as well as a total lack of actual locations.  Props are fine, however, as are other standard production elements, such as camera work and video quality, which keep this production from being totally worthless.  However, the editing also suffers from lack of creativity as it is quite choppy.  In the end, however, these few production positives are the only ones that exist in this unnecessary series.

Plot and Storyline Quality (0 points)

If Tommy Blaze and company were so desperate to make another sitcom, why not just make another season of Hitting the Breaks?  Malibu Dan is really no different—just some rearranged characters and different cast members.  Who would have noticed if some cast members changed for a new season of Breaks?  As it is, Malibu Dan includes the same old tired and ridiculous messages Blaze and David A. R. White have been hanging out to dry for years, such as an absurdly stark gender divide, their patronizing view of Generation Y, and the endless pursuit of media fame and stardom.  As usual, David A. R. White is the bemused husband\father who gets himself into a comedic venture that solves itself in twenty minutes or less.  Everything is the same, and there is nothing new in PureFlix.

Acting Quality (0 points)

With the same old egotistical PureFlix cast members—the Whites, Brad Heller, Kevin Downes, Gregg Binkley—Malibu Dan throws in a few more, such as comedy staple Victoria Jackson and Erik Estrada with a few more plastic surgeries since the last time we saw him.  Regardless of the changes, the zaniness and the over-the-top non-subtlety is still present and still makes for an eye-rolling experience as the leadership of Blaze continues to push ‘Christian’ comedy to the limits of absurdity.  The other cast members are swept along in the wave of nonsense and must wonder how they got stuck with this crew.

Continuity Quality (0 points)

Sitcoms are not made for continuity.  There are no story arcs or character arcs as each episode exists within its own twenty-minute bubble in which all conflicts introduced are promptly and easily solved in time to tack a trite Christian antidote onto the end.  Thus, no points can be awarded here.

Conclusion

As long as the PureFlix faithful continue to garner funding for these frivolous projects, they will keep making them to satisfy their longings to parade themselves around like idiots in the name of Christian entertainment, ever in the pursuit of fame and stardom, just like the characters they portray.  They are as shallow as the comedy they create, but as un-ignorable as David A. R. White’s bombastic displays of idiocy.  They project themselves as the leaders in Christian film and the saviors in a dark world of Christian persecution, but if this is all we have to lead us, it’s no wonder so many people scoff at Christian media.

 

Final Rating: 1.5 out of 14 points

 

January 15, 2018January 19, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Comedy, Series Reviews, SitcomTags: 2018, Andrea Logan White, Anton Fair, Antonio Sabato Jr., Aria Walters, Brad Heller, Clint Howard, Comedy, David A. R. White, David de Vos, David Pires, Don DiPetta, Erik Estrada, Francisco Ovalle, Gregg Binkley, John O'Hurley, Jon Kondelik, Kelly Stables, Kerry Lynne McHugh, Kevin Downes, Laura Reilly, Lauren Harper, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Matt Shapira, Pat McNeely, Philip Morton, PureFlix, Robin Givens, Robin Miller, Sarah Malberg, Shari Rigby, Shelley Robertson, Sitcom, Tim Pipher, Tommy Blaze, Victoria Jackson 6 Comments

Hilton Head Island, Season 1 (Series Review)

Plot Summary

The powerful Trisk family funs the influence ISLE News Network, and they are headed up by the patriarch Daniel Trisk.  However, when he has a sudden stroke on air, the entire empire is threatened.  Victoria Trisk, wife of Daniel, wields her power over the family while her husband lays in a coma.  Everyone in the family has a secret to guard, and each one of them wants the upper hand in the ISLE News Network business.  Will they remember their Christian faith and learn what really matters in the midst of all their conspiracies?

 

Production Quality (1 point)

Though there are attempts at making this ‘hope opera’ series a good production, many of them fall flat.  Beginning with a disorienting opening sequence and continuing with time and location captions, this series commits quite a few errors.  Though location footage is excellent, we never see the characters go to any of those places and instead are forced to watch them awkwardly stand around in cheap and limited indoor sets and in front of painfully obvious green screens.  Issues like these seem to suggest the PureFlix team didn’t know what they were doing with this series, even though video quality, camera work, and audio quality are fine.  The soundtrack is mostly generic, and there is a lot of awkward editing throughout, including lingering scenes and fadeouts.  Unfortunately, a lot of this series’ production is a cover for shortcuts and cheaply done work.

Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)

This ‘hope opera’ also commits pretty much all of the clichés that exist in the severely limited genre of soap operas.  Everything is overly dramatic for no reason, and every conflict seems forced and trumped up, as well as the premise itself.  It feels like this series exists in some alternate world, like a child’s play world, rather than the real world.  Most, if not all, of the characters are annoying and impressed with themselves as most of their dialogue is filled with information dumps of things that happened off screen.  For that matter, there is a lot of talk about these characters doing media work, but we rarely see any of it.  The Christian themes therein are extremely forced and plastic; however, near the end of this season, things take a sudden turn towards remotely interesting rather than the previous fingernails-in-the-chalkboard style they were going for.  Unfortunately, this is too little too late as too many loose ends and unnecessary subplots are introduced in the latter half of the season.  Though there are some interesting attempts at creating flawed characters, it’s just not enough to save this series from itself.

Acting Quality (1 point)

The cast of Hilton Head Island is perhaps among the most plastic-looking and fake-looking we have ever seen, including Hallmark casts.  The makeup work in this film is freakishly awful and out of place.  Besides this pageantry, as previously mentioned, cast members stand around awkwardly like they don’t know what to do.  Their line delivery is unnatural and stilted, while emotions are very wooden and forced.  A lot of the time, they are trying way too hard, especially in scenes that are supposed to have high emotion.  However, there is some improvement noted throughout that keeps this section from being zero.  As a side note, why did Bradley Dorsey choose this mess to restart his acting career with?

Continuity Quality (1 point)

Most of the time, episodes break and transition in the oddest ways.  Also, the same old transition sequences are used over and over again between scenes.  Though there are some attempts at character backstory, many concepts tend to recycle and repeat themselves throughout this series.  There are also way too many subplots going on for any hope of organization to exist.

Conclusion

Once again, PureFlix tries to breach new territory in the Christian entertainment world, and once again, it’s a swing and a miss.  We definitely need a series that has intrigue, conspiracy, and flawed characters with no clear heroes, but this is not the way to do it.  The soap opera mentality is doomed to failure from the start, and the plastic Christian message of this series is laughable, not to mention the utter pageantry embarrassment that this cast is.  Better luck next time, PureFlix.

 

Final Rating: 3.5 out of 14 points

 

January 11, 2018January 19, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Inspirational, Series Reviews, Soap OperaTags: 2017, Alysoun Wolfe, Anna Zielinski, Antonio Sabato Jr., Bradley Dorsey, Carey Scott, Carl Turner, Christina Collard, Crystal Hunt, David A. R. White, David Pires, DH Lewis, Donna Mills, Elizabeth Lambert, Inspirational, Jasmine Wright, Jeremy John Wells, Kenton Duty, Kerry Lynne McHugh, LA Castle Studios, Laura Reilly, Michael Swan, Michelle Thomson, Palma Lawrence Reed, Pam Pipher, PureFlix, Robert McCullough, Robin Miller, Shanna Strong, Soap Opera, Tim Pipher, Trevor Thomas Olwig, Wink Martindale 5 Comments

The Encounter, Season 1 [2016] (Series Review)

With this creepy look, who doesn’t want an encounter?

Plot Summary

When someone is going about their everyday activities, they never know what is about to happen or who they are about to meet.  They all have struggles and secrets that they don’t want anyone to know, but they would be free if they just knew someone they could trust them with.  But people never know when they are about to meet Someone Who will change their life forever.  They never know until they have their own Encounter with Jesus.

 

Production Quality (1.5 points)

The Encounter series follows a typical production formula that PureFlix has been using for years.  They check the boxes for making the production look good on the surface, including video quality, audio quality, sets, props, and locations.  The soundtrack is sometimes engaging but mostly standard.  Sometimes there is too much shaky camera work, especially in the poorly shot actions scenes.  The biggest issue here is that large amount of wasted time throughout the series.  Most episodes are 25-28 minutes long, but the plots are usually so thin that this is too much time.  The exception to this is of episodes one and four, which will be discussed later.  But in the end, this series demonstrates an overall typical and average production effort.

Plot and Storyline Quality (1 point)

For eight episodes, The Encounter rehashes the same types of ideas, concepts, and conversations over and over again, just with different characters.  Outside of episodes one and four, there is no creativity here, as the opening sequence tells you what’s going to happen in each episode.  Besides being predictable, these stories are also very quick and punctuated, like they’ve been made in a quick plot factory.  While there are some good issues raised in the series, there are too many quick fixes and easy solutions based on creepy and plastic Jesus dialogue.  Thus, the messaging is quite shallow.  However, there is some potential here, as the first episode is very interesting and should have been the focus of the whole series so we could have gotten to know these characters better.  Also, the fourth episode would have made an interesting movie, if done properly.  But overall, this series just hops from high point to high point and discards substance and realism along the way.  It’s a good idea done very poorly.

Acting Quality (1.5 points)

While there are bright spots in this large scale cast, there are also plenty of issues.  For one, it seems like Bruce Marchiano, who has done well portraying Jesus in the past, has lost his touch. Other cast members are typical PureFlix standbys and rejects who seem to be lazy and phoning in their performances.  But as it is, it just comes out as average.

Continuity Quality (0 points)

When the same ideas repeat over and over again in each episode and new characters are constantly being introduced, there is no chance or hope for continuity in this season.  There are no story arcs or character arcs.  We need to see what happens to these characters after their initial encounters, which is why it would have been great to have the characters from the first episode be the main focus of this series.  Yet the way it has been done is shallow and lazy, thus warranting no points here.

Conclusion

There’s nothing wrong with having Jesus intervene in everyday situations, but spitting out a whole bunch of episodes that are all basically the same doesn’t accomplish anything.  It’s easy to create a bunch of surface characters and then leave them; it takes true skill to craft meaningful characters that we can connect with.  It’s also a great idea to create a Christian series, but we need something better than this.  We need sustainable ideas that make people want to follow a set of characters across an arc.  PureFlix has the resources to do this, but will they?

 

Final Rating: 4 out of 14 points

 

March 4, 2017January 19, 2019 by Box Office Revolutionary Categories: Drama, Inspirational, Series ReviewsTags: 2016, Andrea Logan White, Anna Zielinski, Antonio Sabato Jr., Aria Walters, Billy DaMota, Boti Bliss, Brad Heller, Brian Bosworth, Bruce Klefstad, Bruce Marchiano, Carey Scott, Carlos PenaVega, Chloe Wick, Christine Scholle, Dane E. Connor, David A. R. White, David Aaron Stone, Delaney, Gabriel Sabloff, Gibson Bobby Sjobeck, Hutch Dano, Inspirational, James Williams, Jen Lilley, Jessica Bridgeman, Joth Riggs, Kass Connors, Keith Ray Putman, Kenton Duty, Kevin Downes, Lesley Armour, Linda Bisesti, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Michael Ironside, Morgan Fairchild, Morgan Leslie, Pamela Fields, PureFlix, Shane Hawks, Stepfanie Kramer, Timothy Ratajczak, Tommy Blaze 4 Comments