Here is a summary of the films reviewed on today’s show:
Captain America: The Winter Soldier does everything that a good sequel should: it broadens the story palate, raises the stakes, complicates the themes, and develops the characters. Even though parts of it are a little unsteady, the movie as a whole is impressive and sends the Avengers in more mature direction.
Bad Words tries to replicate the success of Bad Santa but it is a shallow imitation that misses the nuances that made the earlier film work. This is an attempt to indulge the joy of being deliberately politically incorrect but Bad Words is not nearly as subversive as the filmmakers seem to think it is.
God’s Not Dead can be dismissed merely on the failures of its storytelling but the movie is more troubling because it is indicative of the trends in faith-based moviemaking and of the national discourse on religion. These filmmakers mistake criticism for persecution and plurality for suppression. God’s Not Dead is an anti-intellectual tract masquerading as philosophy and the way this film characterizes the religious debate and the people involved in that debate should be insulting not only to agnostic or atheistic viewers but to Christian audiences as well. This is a movie made by people less interested in a rigorous philosophical debate and much more interested in selling movie tickets by stoking the audience’s anger at straw-men.
Of Gods and Men is a challenging film, one that deals seriously with spiritual and religious themes. However viewers might believe or not believe, this is a film that raises questions about what it is to be spiritual and does so much more effectively than a lot of pictures that are marketed specifically to religious audiences. Of Gods and Men is more demanding of viewers than audiences are probably used to but it is worth the effort.
Full reviews can be found in the Sounds of Cinema review archive.