A cursory review of the latest conservative pseudo-trailer for a movie that does not actually exist:
The Criminalization of Christianity, presented by Faith2Action Films.
I have no idea what's going on here. The premise is that Christianity is being criminalized by the overwhelming might of gay people. Gay people are represented by stock footage and overly dramatic classical music—or perhaps the overly dramatic classical music represents the battle against the stock footage? Gay people are "threatening our children"; the evidence here is apparently Jerry Sandusky. Gay people are threatening our businesses; the evidence there is that Chick-Fil-A, um, exists. I'm all for a good, overly dramatic movie trailer but damn it, I like my movies to have a plot, and the only plot I can discern from this lump is that the forces of video evil are battling against the forces of classical music good, and there had better damn well be an alien reveal at the end or this thing has all been a gigantic waste of time. There's no alien? Well damn it, what is the point, then?
Why the decision to put the dramatic text inside the very same laurels used by film trailers to say "this film has won lots of awards"? Are they celebrating that they thought of saying these things? Are they celebrating the threatening things? What's getting honored, here?
Why are are told that "if homosexual activists achieve their goal," it will be "the criminalization of Christianity." Oh, there's a picture of a jail cell, well that clears everything the hell up. The jail cell is empty, though—did someone just get let out? Was it a gay? Was it a Christian? Was it one of those blurry protesters, with their blurry, blurry anger?
Why does it end with the audience beg, "Help us warn the Church"? Is there some question that the Church is not being properly batshit insane and conspiracy-riddled about the issue of teh gays? So let's say I do what they say, wander in to my local church and say, "Hey, I don't know if you know this, but gay people are coming to get you." What happens then? Do we then barricade the doors, or just print out some pamphlets or something?
All right, we've seen enough. Full marks below the fold:
I'm sorry, I really have to give this effort low marks. I realize I'm not the target audience of this little venture, but I still think it lacks panache.
Music (C+): Not a good choice. I know I've heard it somewhere before, in some better movie, but this music does not scream "danger," this music screams "pensive waiting around while the director gets shots of dramatic landscapes to enhance the mood of things," and the closest thing I see to a dramatic landscape here is a Chick-Fil-A parking lot.
Production Values (D-): The production designer, costume designer and executive producer are all credited to someone by the name of TBA. This guy is terrible at all of it. I'm going to come right out and say it; I'm not even sure there was any production design. You suck at your job, TBA.
Plot (F---): There is no plot. M. Night Shyamalan movies have more plot than this. The receipt for my $4 bag of popcorn has more plot than this. You suck, plot.
Character development (Q-): The only characters seem to be angry gay people, blurry protesters, and some priest that got led away in handcuffs. Oh, and Rahm Emanuel, who's probably the guy who arrested the priest, I guess. Or maybe Robocop arrested the priest, hell if I know. Whatever: All I know is that if the big defining trait of the enemy forces arrayed against your protagonist is "well, they're, um, blurry," you need to go back to the damn drawing board.
Overall effort (D): I'm giving this a generous D grade because I really want them to at least keep making it so we can see a fuller effort. It's a total giveaway of a grade. A more accurate grade would be "taco filling mixed with some sort of bitter-tasting river sediment," but I'm being nice.