‘Daniel And The Fiery Furnace’ Proves Faith-Based Movies Need More Than Good Intentions
(REVIEW) When I finished my screening of “Daniel and the Fiery Furnace,” there was one lone guy who was clapping enthusiastically. A couple of other people lightly joined in, but otherwise it was silent.
The movie was one of the clearest examples of what’s been wrong with faith-based filmmaking over the past 20-plus years: Christian audiences prioritize making and watching movies with a good message, but not beautifully made ones. This is changing, but the persistence of this trend is holding the genre back more than anything else.
“Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” is set during the Jewish exile to Babylon. Taken captive, Daniel and his friends face trials as Babylon's armies conquer Jerusalem. Under King Nebuchadnezzar, they gain royal favor but make enemies. The film features Mena Massoud (Disney’s “Aladdin”) as Daniel and Elijah Alexander (“The Cosen”) as King Nebuchadnezzar.
Read: ‘Widow’s Bay’ Explores the Horror of Post-Christian Paganization
There’s a lot of potential in the “Daniel” story, and even particularly in the angle they attempt to take it. The story follows Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the fall of Jerusalem to being taken into captivity to their rise under Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. This idea is full of drama. Daniel saw Jeremiah warn the king about God’s judgment, and he was ignored. Nebuchadnezzar invaded Jerusalem and razed it to the ground. Daniel and his friends were forced into captivity and had to navigate being faithful to their faith while also working for a pagan king. The themes are relatable to any religious or ethnic minority – for assimilation or marginalization–and are palpable. For Christians debating secular culture and their faith, it would take on an equal resonance.
Yet at every turn the film butchers its potential in its execution. “Daniel” is one of those rare movies which fails on basically every level. The kind that’s made to get ripped apart by 40-year-old white guys with beards on YouTube. The acting from everyone except Alexander is as flat as paper. The script is overwhelmingly tell-don’t-show and does not flow in the slightest.
The film is shot seemingly almost entirely for practicality rather than story or art. The special effects (which are almost entirely generative AI) are laughably unintegrated into the rest of the film. Embarrassingly obvious low-budget, incapable of providing the scale of crowds, soldiers, and sets they are trying to portray.
Take the opening. Right from the start, the story is primarily framed in voiceover, taking us out of the immediate experience. We are given no chance to get to know Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach or Abednego as their scenes are entirely around exchanging exposition blandly or forced teasing that does nothing to differentiate the characters. The invasion happens almost immediately, and it’s distracting how few soldiers and crowds are on screen, and how awkwardly the camera cuts to hide both this and any real on-screen violence. Filmmakers need to know how to make their choices look artistic and not budgetary or squeamish. “House of David” is a good example of a biblical war movie that balances all these concerns.
As the movie goes on, these problems only get worse. Daniel’s only dialogue is to preach or give the right answer in any circumstance. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego exist only to provide supplemental dialogue, never showing any personality of their own. The camera and blocking are the most amateurish I’ve ever seen. The camera angles are all wrong. Where there should be close-ups on a character's face, the filmmakers chose medium shots. When there should be big, long shots showing the grandeur of a building, they use close-ups.
Then you have the constant use of AI-generated animation. Now, I’m not as in principle against AI in all circumstances of filmmaking. But, like anything else, it has to aid the art rather than detract from it. The AI in “Daniel” is primarily used for the dream sequences that Daniel interprets for Nebuchadnezzar, large aerial and crowd shots. These sequences are separate from the other shots and look nothing remotely like them. So the film looks like it’s being interrupted by a screensaver whenever AI is used rather than enhanced by the artistry.
Then there’s the climax. It’s only when Nebuchadnezzar makes it apparent that the statue they’re designing for him is a big vanity project (shocker!) that they start to have conversations about how they obey the king without defying God. This conversation is resolved in a few minutes, and then the rest of the film plays out without fresh emotional insights or experiences because the characters are so flat. The filmmakers decide to go with the fiery furnace as the climax rather than the lion’s den, so Daniel is left without much to do even though he’s the most important character.
How is it that anyone who had the money to hire professional actors like Mena Massoud and Elijah Alexander (and put together the sets, extras, and costumes that these filmmakers clearly had) let this go through? How did they not see that this was an embarrassment to all involved? It has to do with what CS Lewis called out in his seminal work “An Experiment in Criticism.”
He argued that people too often value the message of a work of art over the aesthetic style of a work of art. He called these “Logos” (the message/content) and “Poiema” (style/form). Good art excels at both. Christian film critic explained this in a talk at Biola University.
“Information is good, and we teachers try to impart information all the time, but the form is what turns it into a work of art. When content connects with us, it’s often on our rational level. I read the story, and I think that’s interesting, and what I mean is in my head, I am interested in this. Or, I read a message and I think yes, I agree with that argument, or I disagree with that argument, that’s working in my brain. Then we have the form, which works on what some people call the aesthetic register, I often think of this as the way it connects with my body. It’s the gut reaction that we talk about. In narrative art, that form is what kind of, there is something going on beyond our brains when a movie connects with us.”
Christian films have long prioritized bland information over art that connects with our body. We can see this from the “Left Behind” movies to “Facing the Giants” to “God’s Not Dead” to “Daniel and the Fiery Furnace”. They think Christians should support these films simply because they have the right message. But humans aren’t just minds. Happily, Christians have been making strides in making movies that aren’t just true, but beautiful. Shows like “The Chosen” and “House of David,” and movies like “Last Rodeo” and “I Can Only Imagine 2” are great examples.
But “Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” is a good example of why it’s taken so long, and what continues to hold it back.
“Daniel and the Fiery Furnace” is playing now in theaters.