A different way of telling a story

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Reading the reviews, all I see is 1s and 10s. My word, is there no such thing as true objectivity anymore?I've been following the Kendrick brothers films from the very beginning. Their earliest works are admittedly cheesy bad, but an extremely limited budget could be to blame for that. Watching this film, I felt it was quite an improvement and it is good to see that with each new release, they have attempted to up the production value a little more. Trust me when I say, the acting is WAY better than the earlier projects, although art direction, continuity and other issues still can be improved. While no Hollywood blockbuster, the film has the same kind of quality as a made-for-TV Hallmark film. A little syrupy at times, but overall enjoyable.In regards to the message, I find it laughable when the haters jump on and complain that religious producers should not make movies that bash their religion over your head. That's the whole point. It's their art. Art is designed to communicate the message of the creator. If you don't like the message, don't watch the art. No one's bashing anything. Those who watch the film, do so electively. Nor did I ever get the sense, as many of the critics have suggested, that the main character, a wife, should just stay in an abusive relationship and do nothing and prayer would magically make all things better. That message is not preached in this film. The film's objective was not to focus on the external stuff we do to improve our lives, it was designed to focus on the spiritual efforts. Just because it focused on one, doesn't automatically mean the other doesn't exist. And the movie made it really clear that one doesn't pray for things to magically get better, it prays that we would get a better sense of the understanding and heart of God, and through that, OUR own actions actually DO change. And it's the changing of our actions, brought about through prayer, that can often change the external. Yes, there were cheesy moments. Yes, there were typical feel good moments. But that's what the target audience wants and is looking for. If that's not your cup of tea, that doesn't mean it makes a bad movie. The story moved, and that is what is important, even if the story seemed predictable, and at certain moments, seemed like certain plot twists were added last minute. The movie is less about the plot than it is about the message, and that does become painfully obvious at times. The message was thick, but going in, one should know that this is by design, and should be expected. While the message was heavy, I never felt like the film was preachy. And for that, I feel they did a really good job. I could nitpick about other things, such as art direction (better lighting, camera angles, variance in pacing...), but I think I will end the review here. Acting: 8, Story: 6, Art Direction: 5, Production value: 6, Entertainment value: well, I guess that depends on your world view, apparently. I'd give it an 8.

I am not a Christian but i believe immensely in God and this movie took my breathe away literally. I loved every minute of it. It touches base with so many adversities we have to face in life each day, some more than others but it was so inspiring. The power of prayer. Christian or not this movie helps teach and train the mind to disregard things that don't matter, things that tarnish our minds, our brains, our actions and relationships and it helps us to focus on what is important and how to receive inner healing. My gosh really really loved this movie, have to watch it again. Thank you to all for the beautiful story line, the directors, producers, actors/actresses and all those who help bring this sentiment to life.

For those of you who don't know (because the title of this "film" is pretty misleading) this movie doesn't have anything to do with war, militar codebreaking or something like that. This is a faith-based movie, just for those who pray every day. I'm not kidding, this movie would be awful even for standard believers. I was ten minutes in and I knew I wasn't going to like it. Not only all the characters believe in God and they feel the need of saying they christians all the time, but the message the movie delivers is awful. Do you have problems of any kind? Well, you don't have to do anything. Just sit in an small room and pray, because you don't have the will or power to do anything, is not your responsibility. God will fix it for you if you pray every day. It might sound hilarious but that's the message.Now, even if the message was terrible, the movie could've had something good from a technical point of view. Don't expect that. Not only this seems like a very low-budget movie, but the acting is freaking terrible. The script is one of the worst I've seen in years. The conversations are not only cheesy, there are conversations that would never happen in real life. The old lady who starts to talk about God and asks our protagonists how many times does she pray per day, do you think that would happen in real life? Hell, no. I couldn't stop laughing when the protagonist just tells the old lady everything that's going on with his life. I guess the old lady was some kind of therapist, right?The direction is awful, there's no only one single good shot. You have some jokes here and there but none of them actually hits because you'd probably be sleeping already. It doesn't have any inspiring moment, not even one. Loud-epic music in some moments when people were just talking was totally out of place and show me what this movie was: a mess. But not only a mess: a mess with twisted morals trying to convince you of getting down on your knees and do nothing when things get difficult. If you're feeling what you want to do in life is get inside a room to avoid your responsibilities and your problems, just waiting for them to fix themselves, then this is a must-watch for you. Also, if you keep repeating yourself "I'm Christian and I'm right, all the rest, wrong" then this is the movie for you, but its message it's so terrible that I wouldn't even recommend it to christians. For the rest of the people in the planet, avoid at all costs. It isn't even funny because it tries to hit you in the head with its message so hard that you can't take it anymore. Did I mentioned there's a scene in which the old lady is about to be robbed by a mugger and she stops him by saying "put that knife down in the name of Jesus"? Well, that might be the best scene of the movie. You can watch just that scene if you want to laugh for a while.Seriously, don't watch it. It wouldn't even work if you pretend you're watching a fantasy film located in a fantasy universe. Atrocius in every sense, it only qualifies as a movie because it was recorded with a camera.

It is remarkable how polarized the reviews of this movie have been: lots of 1-2 stars, denouncing it as religious propaganda, and lots of 9-10s, praising it as a touching and theologically enlightening masterpiece. In reality, I'd say it's neither. It's just a rather mediocre movie with Christian themes. There is nothing wrong with filming a movie from a Christian perspective, so War Room deserves no criticism for emphasizing such things as prayer and forgiveness. But it needs to be frankly admitted that War Room is overly optimistic about these things. Its message seems to be that if we will only adopt these virtues, all the problems in our lives will evaporate overnight. This is not only untrue, it is even unchristian. It was to his own followers that Jesus said "in this world you will have trouble." Yes we should pray and ask God for relief when we are in distress, but God may say no. He may have reasons - which he is under no obligation to reveal- for allowing pain, and it is bad theology to think of him like some sort of vending machine, dispensing blessing for the cost of enough prayer.If War Room were merely too optimistic, then I would not give it such a low rating. Lots of stories are too optimistic in their own ways. But War Room also suffers from, well, being a bad movie. The pace of the movie drags, with scene after scene filled with lengthy and often unnecessary dialogue. And while I understand that a movie with spiritual themes might have characters crying now and then, far FAR too much screen time is devoted to these emotional breakdowns in War Room. Particularly towards the end of the movie, it seems as though every scene which advances the plot is accompanied by two more which do nothing but show characters weeping over their past mistakes. This might be forgivable if the characters of War Room were interesting, but unfortunately they are all rather generic and predictable. I would really like to see quality Christian movies produced. I do consider prayer and forgiveness to be virtues, and I want to see them glorified through drama. However, War Room is not up to the task. Though a Christian myself, I found it to be both shallow and uninteresting. I can hardly blame the secular reviewers for their harshness to it.