What if Hercules married Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It would be really really boring!!! This is why Christianity is losing! Christian movies are horrible! So some Christian preacher actually saw Jim Belushi and Linda Hamilton in 'Mr. Destiny' and thought, "Wow, what an inspirational film which deserves a remake."? Hercules stars as a heartless ruthless money obsessed businessman. But since this is a family film he's totally free of drugs and STDs. So he's really not that bad of a person.A near death experience via a sports car accident allows Hercules' guardian angel Cliff from 'Cheers' to give him another chance at life. What if Hercules hadn't become a greedy businessman and had instead married his small town high school sweetheart Buffy? Hercules appears in church where he's a husband, father, and pastor of some non denominational Christian sect. Let's see, only one wife of legal age? That rules out Mormonism.This scene is reminiscent of the famous 'The 39 Steps' improvised impassioned speech scene. Except here it doesn't work! So Hercules lost all his money but is married to Kristy Swanson? What, did they fall in love because they were locked in an attic together for 3 years 4 months and 16 days? If this were real life Hercules would spend the next several years making up for lost time and re consummate their marriage. Hey, their married, it's not immoral or anything.But of course we have to waste 90 minutes going through the motions of Hercules realizing the emptiness of greed and value being a husband and father. It's the type of script where the audience has already figured out the plot and is just waiting for the characters to finally catch up.Seriously, there is no chemistry between Hercules and Buffy at all.Predictably Cliff eventually sends Hercules back in the real world where he rushes to his small home town to profess his love for Buffy whom is still unmarried after 15 years!!! She predictably resists but then reciprocates his bland love.So the moral of this story is that in 15 years Buffy became an old maid so pathetic she couldn't get past her high school boyfriend to have a successful marriage to someone else? And that the key to a happy life is to marry your high school sweetheart right after graduation? (after Alan Thick soiled her from the ages of 16 to 18) I can find NO redeeming reason to see this film other than to marvel at how despite putting on weight Kristy Swanson has really kept her looks.Kevin Sorbo despite putting on weight has also kept his bad acting.

This is a family film. The movie feels like a remake of "It's A Wonderful Life." What If is a movie which can lead to each of us questioning our choices that we made in life. Kevin Sorbo gives an adequate performance of both a high financial negotiator and a Christian minister. However, I still see Kevin Sorbo as "Hercules" the hero of the common man and noble of spirit. In both his roles, Kevin is still "Hercules" -- hero of the common man with the feelings of the common man as well as being noble of spirit. It is a good movie to watch in the afternoon rather than the evening, although OK to watch in the evening. The movie has no real stressful moments and is easily forgotten once you watch another movie. Enjoy.

It's an OK movie - not great, but OK. It's basically a version of It's a Wonderful Life, just from the other perspective. You get the same kinds of themes and all, but this time George (Ben Walker, actually) gets to leave and then sees not how rotten it would be if he hadn't lived, but how much happier he'd have been had he stayed behind.The hero of What If... can't, however, be the owner/manager of a savings & loan back at home. If he'd had the wonderful life instead of the life he actually chose, he'd be a preacher. Capra's masterpiece showed a deeply spiritual, loving, Christian way of doing business (particularly as set in opposition to the evil banker, Mr. Potter). Here we get the contrast between the preacher who is doing things just for the Lord, and the businessman doing things for the money. The morality play is absolutely clear cut, and in case you don't quite get it, there are sermons and prayers - some by cute little kids - to make sure you get the message.It also has its own Christian form of political correctness. They do have the hero (in his "what if" life) graduate from Moody Bible Institute (Baptist/revivalist, though not officially affiliated with any one denomination), but the church he serves is just "Little White Church" - no denomination, no history, no tradition, no nothing. Just the "Little White Church." This also makes it difficult to suspend disbelief and enter into the story as if these are real people whose struggles unfold before us.And so the movie comes up short.I find that in quite a bit of art - images, movies, music, books - produced by evangelicals. We can't quite trust the art. We seem afraid of not having it all nailed down so people can't misinterpret it. Instead of telling the story, we preach. Instead of singing the song, we preach. Instead of painting the picture, we preach. Instead of varied forms of art, we have sermon illustrations and most of them are pretty generic so as to be readily adaptable to whatever text you happen to be using this week.I wonder if this is not some sad legacy of the Protestant Reformation - the iconoclastic riots that destroyed statuary and stained glass and other "images" that tempted to idolatry. Are we still carrying that burden and that's why we have to surround our artistry with sermons lest we be tempted once again? I don't know, but it does seem that Catholic artists don't have the same problem, or at least not as severely.Don't get me wrong. Preaching is a form of art, too. There is certainly a place for the sermon and the sermon illustration. But a movie or a novel or a song or a picture can be just as God-glorifying without the sermon - and likely more so since it will be better art.Good art, like a good joke, is diminished if you have to explain it and if I could give any advice to young artists, it would be to let the art speak for itself. What If... can't quite bring itself to do that.

We found this one on Netflix streaming movies. As most others have recognized, we right away said "this is a different version of 'Family Man' with Nick Cage." And it is, although both of them were inspired by older movies which play on the same theme.That theme is, what would your life be if you had made a different decision at a critical point? Both movies treat the beginnings and the ends very similarly, but the middles are totally different. In "What If" Kevin Sorbo is Ben Walker who 15 years earlier was telling his girlfriend goodbye at the bus station as he was about to leave for 7 months. She was worried but he assured her "Nothing will come between us." Well 15 years later Ben is a very single, very smart, very wealthy, Harvard-educated businessman with an instinct for closing deals. And making lots of money. He is about to be made partner in his firm, and to celebrate he buys an expensive car. As he is driving towards his old home town the car acts up, gages all flash, the car dies.Reminiscent of the Don Knotts character in 'Pleasantville' who showed up with a new remote, John Ratzenberger as Mike the Angel shows up with a tow truck. He doesn't waste a lot of time telling Ben that he has been sent by 'the guy up there' to show Ben what his life would have been if he had returned to his girlfriend.That girlfriend is Kristy Swanson as Wendy Walker . After Mike the Angel puts Ben's lights out with one punch, Ben later awakens at his "home", complete with a wife (Wendy) and two cute daughters. It is Sunday, they are getting dressed for church, and Ben finds out he has just become their new pastor of this little white church in his hometown.So the movie, even with its serious theme has many funny parts. All three main actors are very good in their roles. We get to see how Ben handles this "glimpse" into the life he failed to choose.SPOILER, the ending: Ben is removed from his "glimpse" but is moved by the experience. He wants Wendy, he wants a family, and he wants to become a minister. When he looks her up, she is at that same station, about to take a bus to the city. He pleads with her to stay, but she thinks it is too late. She gets on the bus, then Ben watches it roll away. But then it returns, Mike the Angel is the driver now, and as it rolls away again Wendy is standing there with her suitcase. Then it flashes to a few years later, their daughter's birthday, Wendy pregnant, and we see the same scene that Ben had seen in old home movies during his "glimpse".