What Would Jesus Buy? (2007)
Average Rating: 6/10
Reviews Counted: 57
Fresh: 32 | Rotten: 25
WWJB is an eye opening doc about consumerism that manages to be both funny and informative.
Average Rating: 5.4/10
Critic Reviews: 19
Fresh: 10 | Rotten: 9
WWJB is an eye opening doc about consumerism that manages to be both funny and informative.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 2,833
Movie Info
Bill Talen is a New York-based activist and performance artist who since the late '90s has won notoriety for his character Rev. Billy. Rev. Billy is a wildly charismatic street preacher and self-appointed leader of the Church of Stop Shopping, who began his career speaking out against the gentrification of New York City, the forced renovation of 42nd Street, and his favorite symbol of the evils of international marketing, the Disney Store. Since then, Rev. Billy has expanded his targets to
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All Critics (61) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (32) | Rotten (25) | DVD (4)
The good reverend and his crew do their best to get busted at assorted corporate shrines (Disneyland, the Mall of America), but their media-driven antics serve only to underline Spurlock's add-water-and-stir approach to political documentary.
Top CriticWhat Would Jesus Buy? is must-see viewing for anyone who thinks of Christmas as just a mall and its night visitors.
WWJB? encourages viewers to think outside the big box of super stores such as Wal-Mart.
What Would Jesus Buy? is paved with good intentions...
In WWJB, we don't really feel like we get to know anyone that well, not even the primary subjects of the film: Billy and his choir.
This funny, yet thought provoking film asks many questions that have plagued consumerism for decades. While much of the ground tracked over is old, it fits perfectly into the modern economic situation.
So we need a better movie about this subject. As usual.
The shopaholic wages of sin are...the Shopocalypse!
Reverend Billy is a charismatic presence, even if his shtick is too silly and the documentary too unfocused to motivate any serious change in the nation's holiday spending habits.
Seeing WWJB? in a theater is not necessary, although seeing him and the choir hijacking a mall in person would be better than Beowulf in IMAX.
Talen runs the risk of losing his purpose amid his performance.
These bits of information could have been shocking in about 1940, 1980 and 1990. But by now, Americans who don't know couldn't care less.
Having illuminated the many dimensions in that vast universe between the flat affect of creative depression and the modish affectation of emo posing, Corbijn manages Control with elegant, understated veneration.
While the movie may be a good vehicle for Rev. Billy's points, it's too tied to his point of view.
Genuine and meaningful provocateurs like Talen are vital, and his message is a glad one to anymore who abhors the WalMart-ification of America.
And as far as sermons go, it's a good one. You just wish the director had found someone else to deliver it.
An amiable but also angry documentary.
Obvious or not, heeding Reverend Billy's anti-Shopacolypse gospel could make your holidays a little simpler, sweeter, and saner.
It's not much of a film, but it's a swell opinion column.
I really like the message the movie has to say... I just wish the whole package were good enough to recommend as a gift to give yourself instead of another hour and a half at the mall.
While you can appreciate what the choir and the film are trying to say, too often they get bogged down in trying to spread that message. They also take themselves a little too seriously at times.
My nomination for a new Christmas perennial: What Would Jesus Buy?
Watch it, then cut back on your credit-card purchases and say Hallelujah! to Reverend Billy.
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Movie: ID: 770678747 Title: What Would Jesus Buy? Release Date: 2007-11-16 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 2 Status: 1
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"What Would Jesus Buy" is a documentary that examines the commercialization of Christmas in America and the negative effects it has on American consumers as well as the sweatshop workers who produce most of these products. Meanwhile, the good reverend and his gospel choir tour the country preaching the gospel of frugality and denounce the worship of products. They of course, get kicked out of or arrested at each place they enter. The reverend has even been banned form ever Starbucks in the country because of his antics. Also in true Spurlock fashion, this film has a comedic twist so that viewers are still entertained while informed.
WWJB isn't really an eye-opening documentary if you've already heard about the sweatshops that make shoes and most of the nation's clothing. And perhaps the saddest part of the film is when the choir read what critics have been saying about them. Some of the consumers interviewed even admitted that they didn't care where their products came from or who suffered making them, as long as they got their products. This doc is both hilarious and depressing but well done and worth the watch.