Faith-based films have received consistently low ratings on the popular movie review website Rotten Tomatoes despite receiving positive feedback from fans, and it is making some Christians wonder if the themes presented in the films are too offensive for mainstream viewers.
Breathe Cast, for one, compiled some of the more popular Christian films to date and their corresponding low ratings from the website and mulled: "Is this part of some ploy to discredit movies of faith?"
Little Boy, which was released this year by Open Road Films, earned a respectable $28 million at the box office. Audiences loved the film about a young boy who is willing to do everything he can to get his father back home from World War II, but Rotten Tomatoes critics only rated it a dismal 15 per cent.
One critic even described it as "well-meaning but manipulative on a horrifically misguided scale".
"Little Boy is the rare faith-based film that many viewers may find legitimately offensive," the reviewer wrote.
Meanwhile, Pure Flix's latest offering Do You Believe? made $12.5 million but only received a 19 per cent positive rating from Rotten Tomatoes. Its earlier release entitled God's Not Dead was an even bigger hit, earning an impressive $60.8 million. However, it was only rated by the website at 17 per cent.
Mark Burnett and Roma Downey's biblical epic called Son of God, which was released in 2014 did not pass the standards of Rotten Tomatoes' critics either. Despite earning $59.7 million in the box office, it only got a 21 per cent positive review rating.
The only faith-based films that managed to pass their standards were Mel Gibson's 2004 film called The Passion of the Christ, starring Jim Caviezel, and the 2014 flick Noah from director Darren Aronofsky.
The former earned $370.2 million at the box office and received an 80 per cent approval rating from the website, while the latter earned $101.2 million and got a 77 per cent approval rating.