Parents' Guide to A Great Awakening

This biographical drama clicks when it spends time on the friendship between Franklin and Whitefield but sinks when it's focused on the latter, who is depicted as a one-dimensional messiah type. A Great Awakening is, above all, a faith-based movie, and its main goal is to get that message across. It's wise enough to give Franklin room to grow—and Sneed is very good in the role—and to express his evidence-based views, which are the opposite of Whitefield's. And their discussions and arguments are fascinating (although they probably won't interest younger kids).

But while we watch the evolution of Whitefield, we still don't see very much of who he is or what his flaws might have been. Moreover, the movie is too conventionally made, with a glaring overuse of music and a few too many generic montage sequences. One scene borders on silly: an appearance by none other than George Washington (Russell Dean Schultz), who shows up at the Franklin house in the middle of a storm, reminding Ben that the Constitutional Convention must not fail. (Ben was very likely already aware of that.) And the powerful yet vexing ending uses Franklin's real-life speech to the convention, proposing daily prayers as a way of bringing humility to those assembled. It ties in neatly with the script, but it also creates disharmony between the two characters. Nevertheless, the good parts in A Great Awakening indicate that a decent movie about Ben Franklin—who is surprisingly underrepresented in big-screen cinema—could be made someday.