90 Minutes in Heaven feels like a film that already knows exactly which churches will buy copies and which denominations will watch it, and therefore the best word to describe it would probably be lazy.
Movies with obvious agendas don’t necessarily have to be bad, but on some level they need to make an effort to bring in new viewers, otherwise they’ll be doomed to remain a niche product forever, and whatever message you wanted to get out will remain with that niche market that already believes it. In terms of what it wants to do, it achieves a bare pass, but nothing exceptional. There have even been far better Christian movies in the last few years that are more worthwhile to watch than this.
[dropcap]B[/dropcap]ased on a real-life account, Don Piper (Hayden Christensen) is a Texas preacher who is involved in a car accident, during which time he is dead for about 90 minutes, in which time he views Heaven. Upon being revived back on Earth, he must deal with the profound melancholy that affects his life after leaving Paradise. Kate Bosworth plays his long-suffering wife Eva, desperately trying to draw her husband emotionally back to her again and the rest of the world of the living.
Firstly, Christensen is a very bad actor for this role. All I could see was yet another edition of the flailing emotional robot called Anakin Skywalker. Bosworth was superior here, giving the movie the only real depth it had, as she struggles with her emotions as a wife. The lack of depth is the problem with this movie as a whole: the entire concept is pretty much accepted as face value, and therefore we never have any insight into the doubt or worries that must plague such a revelation from someone we know and love. Adding insult to injury was the thoroughly uninspired depiction of heaven as a land of nice grass and cute puppies and smiling minorities. It all came across as so saccharine.
Add to this some bad dialogue, some overly pointless exposition every time a character walks in and an overly long runtime with no purpose and we are left with not much to recommend as a movie here. 90 Minutes in Heaven‘s message has even been done better before. For a Christian person looking for a movie reflecting their faith, you could do much better than this.
