Photo courtesy of IMDb Kirstin Door (from left), Dean Cain, Kaden Billin and Charisma Carpenter star in the movie, ‘Heaven’s Door.’

With a plot more suited for “Star Trek,” the faith-based movie “Heaven’s Door” introduces us to a 12-year-old girl from the small mountain town of Vineyard, Utah, who receives special healing powers after being saved by some supernatural force after falling from a tree.

(I was curious and serious about this storyline being from “Star Trek,” the TV series. Season 3, Episode 12, which aired on Dec. 6, 1968, and was called “The Empath.” Kirk, Spock and McCoy suddenly find themselves in an underground laboratory where they meet a young woman – McCoy gave her the name Gem – who is not only mute but also an empath who can absorb someone else’s pain.

Gem’s empathic powers allow her to take away their pain, but only at great sacrifice to herself. When their captors tell Kirk that he must choose which of his men to die, their selflessness comes to the forefront, leaving Dr. McCoy volunteering himself. They all soon learn that the object of the experiment is Gem herself.)

Back to the 2012 film of “Heaven’s Door, young Riley Taylor (played by Kirstin Dorn) seems like your average kid who loves playing soccer but doesn’t like that her parents have separated.

Less than two minutes into the movie, her beloved grandfather (Ed Hermann keels over and dies while visiting with her. This is the latest tragedy to strike Riley’s mother Julie (Charisma Carpenter), a fledgling local newspaper columnist who recently lost a baby and her faith and is in the process of filing for divorce from her mechanic husband Leo (Dean Cain).

Riley’s candid, judgmental grandmother (Joanna Cassidy) does not approve of Julie’s actions, specifically her discouraging Riley from believing in a higher power. Riley believes her late grandfather is contacting her from heaven and bestowing healing powers on her.

Shortly after her grandpa’s death, Riley manages to kick a soccer ball high up into an evergreen tree. She not so sensibly climbs the tall tree to retrieve the ball and loses her grip on a branch, falling to what might be her own end. Instead, something catches her and slows her descent, and she’s perfectly fine. Remarkably, this brush with death has turned her into a healer. She soon finds a portal leading to the place people talk about but never see: Heaven.

Soon, Riley’s resurrecting a neighbor’s pet and curing others that aren’t well. She even heals her four-year-old brother Morgan (Kaden Billin), who was recently diagnosed with asthma.

While the family’s doctor (Michael Flynn) deems it a miracle, skeptical Julie won’t have any of that. Still, afraid of the consequences, she forbids her daughter from healing anyone else.

Here’s where the movie gets muddled, as it decides that Riley is meant to heal just a single person. After that, the backyard tree’s portal to another dimension closes, the effects of Riley’s divine intervention are reversed and she begins exhibiting all of the symptoms she cured others of. You know what they say, “Every good thing comes with a price.”

It all leads to a conclusion that very much would like for you to cry and believe that a happy ending will elude the Taylors. Spoiler alert: Riley later seems to be pronounced dead but then returns to life in an unexplained way, with perhaps the intervention of her late grandfather.

The Reedsville United Methodist Church, located at 82 E. Logan St., Reedsville, will show “Heaven’s Door” at 6:30 p.m. Sunday for their free movie night. Admission is free and the community is invited. Refreshments will be served.

Rating: PG

Runtime: 98 minutes

Grade: C+

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Greg Williams is a reporter and Weekend Editor for The Sentinel. A Mifflin County native, he has been writing for The Sentinel since 1991.