The Unbelievers (2013)

From my favorite movies..

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

This film is a documentary that captures a road trip of two prominent spokesmen of atheism around the world. It does not try to convince non-atheists to become atheists or try to argue anything (or even make a point), it merely shows the road trip these guys made and the growing interest in atheism.That said, I see a lot of reviews here which are just blatant attempts from religious people to rate this movie as low as possible, and take cheap shots at atheists in the process. I've seen people argue that atheism is a mental disease, supposedly actually written down in the DSM. Don't take these clowns seriously. They probably mean that sometimes atheism is seen as a symptom. People with autism, for example, are more convinced by things they can see and touch than invisible beings like God. Therefore, a lot of them don't believe in God.The film itself is pretty entertaining. If you're a fan of Dawkins and/or Krauss, this is a fun to watch experience that shows them basically on a road trip. If you're not, this might not interest you that much.

If this film tried to argue its position, i wouldn't have rated it so lowly. Unfortunately it doesn't, it is only a propaganda piece. It uses emotional arguments and the cult of celebrity in attempt to endorse a belief system. Meanwhile, one of the stars of the film in Richard Dawkins runs scared from open intellectual debate with Christian apologist William Lane Craig. This is a scientist who claims to be an advocate of reason who chooses, rather than debate his position in open forum, to instead use the cult of celebrity to convince the human cattle that his belief system is the one and only true belief system, and all others are wrong.If your intellectual capacity has run so dry that celebrity endorsement can convince you of any belief system (ie atheism), this film is for you. For those of a more critical nature, this film is offensive.

I don't know that these people understand the term "atheism" or have unwittingly hijacked it to mean "against extremist religion" for there is not a lot, beyond personal and untrained anecdotal observation, to chew on in any academic sense. If you've ever heard Joseph Campbell speak on the subject, you'd realize how bush league and irresponsible this is. Atheism is now it's own market and has put these guys on the road to promote the film. Untold semiological crimes are being committed in the name of commerce and personal financial agendas, the first being the blurring of the term "atheism". These kinds of irresponsible broad releases can really backfire if the players don't have their terms and definitions in order and decline to include anyone who may have studied the subject seriously. Lots of books are being sold and our cultural philosophy is, once again, being determined by editors who are responsible for selling books and movies. Only this time, we are not modifying the definition of family, planting a product brand into our cultural consciousness or associating a core value with a car. We are talking about using a core belief (or unbelief) system potentially as a vehicle for something totally unrelated that will have many opportunities for adulteration and being re-fit to market along the way (like any brand.) None of these guys are saying much beyond a fairly surface polemic against an obviously delusional minority (I think they may be pumping the stats for their own ends as well.) Very hard to believe that half of the population does not understand or give any credence to the theory of evolution despite it's universal acceptance by all the major religions and it's instruction in faith based schools for more than half a century.I would take their own advice and not believe everything you hear.

Like the previous reviewer, I was lucky enough to be one of the 3000 in attendance for the test-screening of this movie on March 29th. I could have rushed to write a review, but thought that giving myself awhile to digest it all and really think on it would be the best thing.I left the screening with a buzz, almost a high, and perhaps it was partially due to being in a room with so many like-minded individuals. Upon waking the next morning, that buzz had subsided a bit, and was replaced by questions. GOOD questions. I wanted to know more, to research, to research, to learn and understand and seek out new things.This film touches on so many subjects - from getting something from nothing, to evolution and our inability to comprehend long time, to arguments for reason in a world with very little of it, to the importance of making decisions based on reality, to the dangers of religion in society, to snippets of historical science trivia – that it would be literally impossible to fully explain any one of those issues without turning the movie in to a 24-hour-long miniseries. Maybe that was the point. Spark the interest, pique the curiosity, and let the viewer take it from there. The snippets of celebrity interviews were just enough to season the movie and give some different angles without taking away from the focus on the film, and as always, Ricky Gervais didn't fail to disappoint.The directors described this movie as a rock-and-roll-tour-film about scientists. While that definitely came across, especially through the beautiful shots of packed audiences in several different locations and multiple countries, what I got more out of this movie was the human aspect of these two men. Anyone in this community knows the names of Professors Dawkins and Krauss. We've all got our favorite quotes, our favorite arguments, our favorite books (and passages therein), but we know them only in that regard. What I think we fail to understand much of the time is that these two are people (and hard-working people, at that!). They travel and sight-see and take pictures and eat ice cream and work on their laptops and get tired. They really are human, and it seems they really are friends, and I feel like I'm more familiar with them now than I ever could have been reading all of their books or watching all of their lectures. While I won't claim to feel like I was on the road with them, the beautifully captured scenes of auditoriums, backstage areas, crowds, cityscapes, and close-ups of various objects of interest, makes me feel much more connected and like a part of these two lives.One thing worth mentioning is that this film treads somewhat lightly. It's not as in-your-face as I would have expected, and looking back, I think that's probably for the best, and was more than likely a choice made by the directors, as (if I heard correctly) they had some 250 hours of footage to sift through. Knowing RD, LK, and their cohorts, it definitely could have turned into something brash and abrasive that would immediately turn off any even slightly believing or sensitive viewers. As it stands, it's really more of a conversation starter, and with all of the topics I mentioned above, can start the conversation about any number of subjects, depending on the viewer and their interests.And lest I forget, this movie is FUNNY! To anyone in fear that a 90-minute documentary about an evolutionary biologist and theoretical physicist may be drab, I assure you that couldn't be further from the case. There were several parts of the movie I couldn't hear because there was so much laughter in the auditorium.That leads me to my one major complaint: the sound quality. While I understand that with a documentary, you're simply there on the scene and can only get the sound that was originally produced, there were many times that voices were muffled, lines were indiscernible, or that the music was simply too much for the dialogue. As the previous reviewer stated, this was a test screening only and much may change before the first official release. If the sound quality is the only thing that changes, I think this will be a near-perfect film and one that I would be proud to recommend to friends of all faiths, beliefs, and convictions.