Facing the Giants (2006)

Earnest but amateurish.

In a season in which Invincible and Gridiron Gang already have laid claim to the title of inspirational football movie, this looks like an also-ran.

Its feel-good storyline, shopworn message, and bottomless sermonizing would have played better in Sunday school than on the big screen, which is -- let’s face it -- Babylon’s turf.

Here's a badly acted movie with a terrific story line that makes it well worth seeing.

A sermon much more than it is a movie.

Most of the actors read their lines earnestly but flatly, and Kendrick has done them no favors by pushing them to play broad comedy in some scenes and anguished drama in others.

Fitfully entertaining… To reach a broader audience, though, the filmmakers will have to scrap their playbook and learn a whole new set of rules.

Would seem sincere enough, but it's just a chain of ludicrous cliches of both the sports and religious variety.

For it to have any appeal for persons who do not share the movie's beliefs would indeed be miraculous -- it's appallingly bad as anything other than a sermon.