Plot Summary
Taken from their cherished hometown Jerusalem as young men, Daniel and his three friends must learn to navigate their new culture, Babylon, without compromising their Jewish faith. Even when it appears as though all hope is lost, Yahweh continues to give Daniel and his friends opportunities to influence their own captors for the better. As Daniel’s life progressed, he was given more and more chances to influence world politics by simply serving and obeying Yahweh. The life of Daniel is one that can be modeled by Christians of all generations and cultures.
Production Quality (.5 point)
Unfortunately, The Book of Daniel falls into the infamous Biblical film traps when it comes to production. The sets and costuming scream church play and demonstrate a severely limited budget combined with lack of attention to historical authenticity. There are no outside sequences, except for one, that are not replaced with extremely obvious CGI. There are also some annoying special effects. For what it’s worth, the camera work is not horrible and the editing is passable, even though the story is very choppy. In summary, PureFlix Bible productions leave much to be desired.
Plot and Storyline Quality (.5 point)
It is commendable to cover all the stories in the Biblical book of Daniel in one movie and to transpose it with Daniel’s God-given influence over historical monarchs. But in this pursuit, the viewer gets lost in a very disjointed storyline. There is simply too much content and not enough character development. We at Box Office Revolution continually wonder why Biblical characters always have to be portrayed in the movies as inhuman and lofty—they were regular people! The dialogue of The Book of Daniel also reminds one of a poorly written church play, very robotic. The bottom line is that while there was a mountain of potential to be found in this sort of plot, it was never unearthed. We are only left with a pathetic attempt.
Acting Quality (1 point)
While the acting is not glaringly bad, it is overly theatrical and overly practiced. There are little to no emotions expressed. Again, it gives off the impression that Bible characters were not real people, but like talking wax figures. We believe that if these actors had been afforded better lines and better coaching, something more could have materialized. But alas, we are once again left wondering what could have been.
Conclusion
Bible movies need to be made, but not like this. So many audiences need to know what is in the Bible, but films like The Book of Daniel only serve to further turn people off, making them think that the Scriptures are boring and full of inaccessible characters we can’t relate to and fantastical events that will never happen again. The truth is, nothing could be more of a lie. The Bible has many historical and realistic narratives full of flawed and believable characters that need to be depicted on the big screen properly. We look forward to the day when this will happen.
Final Rating: 2 out of 10 points
Box Office Revolution 