Maybe the Erwin brothers, the evangelical Christian duo who cranked this out, should have asked themselves if God was weighing in with a movie review.........
We've posted on Christian movies before, detailing all their many failings, but we'll give this much to the Brothers Erwin.......
At the very least, they make 'I Still Believe' look like a real movie.......
Professional cinematography, smooth editing, recognizable, competent actors......(no more filling up the supporting cast with church volunteers, all those nice folks who'd usually make the potato salad for the Sunday picnic.......)
The end result compares to real films the way the Muzak in elevators vaguely resembled actual music........sounded just like real music, but deep down, you knew it wasn't.......merely a pale imitation.
The Erwin bros aspire to jerk tears out of you with this true story of Christian singer-songwriter Jeremy Camp (K.J. Apa) and his cancer-stricken soulmate/bride Melissa Henning (Britt Robertson).
Seems like an easy enough task to accomplish........except the Erwins lack every fundamental filmmaking and storytelling skill to engage an audience.....
For close to two excruciating hours, they dutifully plot through all the expected tropes of a tearjerker.......as if they're working their way through a checklist of events listed on the church bulletin board....
The Erwins' complete ineptitude at attempting to rend your heart gives the film an unintentional sub-text of phoniness and insincerity. They're straining themselves to make their audience weep......but they're like the pod people from 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'......
.......the best these guys can do is mimic human emotion, not portray it.
Then again, it's possible the movie will find a receptive audience in the evangelicals.....life-long hypocrites who tossed out all the teachings of their Bible in order to embrace and worship Donald Trump, who mocks their supposed values with every breath he takes.
'I Still Believe' must truly be meant for them, a film brimming with false piety and a paint-by-numbers approach to depicting human tragedy.......
For everyone else, Zero stars (0).
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