I Can Only Imagine 2

Grade: B

“I Can Only Imagine” was written in the late 1990s, and has become one of the most popular, tear-jerkiest Christian rock ballads of all time – and deservedly so. I like the song. I’ve played it at my church, and hope to again one day, on a happier occasion than when I did. The lyrics talk about what it would be like to meet Jesus in heaven. It launched composer Bart Millard and his band MercyMe into wild success within the Christian music world. A film, named after the song, was released in 2018.

Lionsgate and many of the original cast/crew are back for I Can Only Imagine 2. John Michael Finley could have quite a career as a movie star if he ever chooses to break out of the faith-based Angel Studios territory once in a while, because he is very good as Bart Millard. After some flashbacks, when we catch up with him in ICOI2’s present day, he and his wife Shannon have a handful of children, including  the diabetic Sam, who is now a teenager. MercyMe is about to embark on another tour – as the headliner this time, as their support act had to drop out.

This opens the door for solo artist Tim Timmons to tag along as their opener. Sporting a beard that makes him look like John Turturro or Adam Sandler, Milo Ventimiglia (Jack from This Is Us) plays him as a bouncy, perky, dad-joke-telling Ned Flanders type. He is the comic relief, attempting to extract as many laughs as possible. He gets away with most of them. The gruff, deadpan tour manager Scott Brickell (Trace Adkins) tells him after the first show “your set sucks,” due to being too boring with just him and an acoustic guitar. A later scene has him delivering a lengthy speech during his set about his favorite hymn (“It Is Well With My Soul”). The sentiment is nice, but I wasn’t as taken in by it as the movie wanted us to be. All I could think was “You’re told that you need to spruce up your onstage act, and your idea is to launch into a 5 minute monologue during the show?”

The film has a couple of plot points introduced to us so that they can come into play later with a big reveal. Bart is constantly on Sam’s case about remembering to monitor his levels and take his scheduled insulin shot. No points for guessing whether that will get a callback. A musician on the road reveals that he is sick. This is treated like a vague movie illness without many details. I get that this is a true story, but we could have learned about the ailment before the characters did, and the Sam situation could have happened without the forceful setup. Saving it for later or signaling it too obviously feels cheap.

However, the story has enough heart to transcend quibbles and carry it through, as does the cast. Sammy Dell is great as Sam, and has the character arc I enjoyed the most. Sophie Skelton and Arielle Kebbel are appealing as the wives of Bart and Tim. Dennis Quaid reprises his role as Bart’s father. I’m glad they found a way to include him. The direction is infectiously sunny. A tour bus has never looked more luxurious.

I wasn’t crazy about the final scene at Red Rocks, from a narrative standpoint. The idea that a lead singer can spot someone in a crowd that size, and then stop the show to wander off into the audience and have a moment with them while fireworks go off at a perfect time is pretty unbelievable. However, the song performance here is entertainingly constructed. Directors Andrew Erwin and Brent Mccorkle don’t appear to have any music video credits on their resumes, but they should. They have a gift in that department. I wouldn’t have minded the scene being longer if it included one more musical performance, of the song that was responsible for two movies. I was surprised we weren’t thrown this bone, as a “you know it, you love it, you probably want to hear it, here you go” gesture.

All is forgiven by the very end, with an inventive use of the captions that tell us what happens to everyone, and how they’re doing now. For all the usual cliches and conventions of the genre, I liked the film. The actors are convincing and earnest, they know their way around a fretboard, and the true story is a feel-good one. I’m glad I saw I Can Only Imagine 2. For every note I had, there’s a beautiful one coming from a voice or an instrument. Audiences will eat it up. That’s something I can imagine.

Grade: B