Countdown: Jerusalem

Curiosity got the better of me which was what made me see Countdown: Jerusalem in the first place. I was expecting little as it was from the notorious The Asylum. Actually compared to Titanic II, Transmorphers, AVH:Alien vs Hunter, 2010: Moby Dick and Alien Origin it is not as terrible as those and some of their other efforts. Some of the acting is decent, there are some good locations and the effects are actually while not great among some of the better ones in quality from The Asylum. Music was also not so good, but at the same after watching it didn't stay in your head very long. However, the stock footage and the lack of extras makes it all too obvious of how low in budget Countdown: Jerusalem is, while the direction is lazy and the lead actor very bland. Countdown: Jerusalem is a badly written film, with trite dialogue, badly underdeveloped characters and a story that feels so disconnected and convoluted with no suspense or thrilling moments and the religious aspects did feel rather heavy-handed. So all in all, The Asylum have done much worse and I have also seen worse, but Countdown: Jerusalem still did little for me. 3/10 Bethany Cox

If you are a Christian, and a follower of great Christian movies such as the Left Behind Series, Fireproof, or many many other greats, you will be very disappointed, to say the least. This awful movie features a nonsensical weak plot, wishy washy and biblically watery and very weak, filled with time-wasters like unexplained journeys through the desert with pretty sunsets, and stereotyped Jewish people with camels and Arab names. All the while the plot goes absolutely nowhere. It is literally painful to watch. It is clearly a complete sham "Pulp Christian" movie purely designed to attempt to make easy money of the "Christian movie market". There are so many things wrong with this movie that it defies description. No continuity from any true faith based Christian perspective, moronic, flowery (and incorrect) King James style English recited in prayers that is quite laughable and truly ridiculous. It is as if the very worst writers from the Hollywood B grade "garbage-movie" set tried to sit down and with absolutely minimal knowledge of Christianity, biblical fact or even history, write a movie that would somehow sell to Christians. The writers and producers should be truly ashamed of this piece of worthless garbage. If you look you will see it is made by a new company called "FAITH FILMS" which is an offshoot of "THE ASYLUM" film company which incidentally makes the lowest form of brainless B grade "sex and drugs" films for teenage markets, like "SEX-POT" about kids smoking special aphrodisiac weed that somehow makes them all rip off their clothes and have sex. This all is brought to you by Hollywood scumbags trying to make money from persons of faith, while peddling mind rotting perverted garbage to your children. In other words, a total sham. Don't waste your time or money on this.

When I read the DVD box of the movie, I saw that it was made by "Faith Films", which gave me a big clue as to what the quality of the movie would be like. (Let's face it, most movies made by religious filmmakers are pretty bad.) Had I known before watching the movie that Faith Films was an offshoot of the notorious studio The Asylum, I would have had an even better idea of what I was going to witness.

To be fair, this Christian movie doesn't keep hitting the viewers' heads with "messages", instead for the most part by taking the portion of the Bible that deals with the last days and handling it as both an unfolding mystery and an end-of-the-world movie. Though if you are not familiar with what the Bible says about the last days, you will be confused by several parts of the movie. Even if you are familiar with the Bible, there are still a number of non-religious parts of the script that are confusing! For what was obviously a very low budget, the filmmakers managed to do some things well. It's decently shot, the CGI is pretty good for a cheapie movie, and they managed to shoot a lot of the movie on authentic Israeli locations. But the low budget keeps showing throughout, with liberal use of stock footage and scenes with no extras in the background.

The main problem with the movie is that there's no spark to it. Although the acting isn't awful, there's no passion, no conviction to the words the actors speak. The unfolding story moves extremely slowly, and there's never any excitement, tension, or thrills.

While this isn't the worst effort by The Asylum, it's still pretty dreary and cheap. I bought this movie and three other Asylum movies in a 4-movie DVD pack for just $5, and though this movie's share is $1.25, I still feel ripped off.

This movie is very hard to follow. The plot is so hard to follow that you don't know what is going on most of the time. Very few words are actually spoken and you find yourself trying to guess what is going on. I'm a Christian and I know a lot about the Bible and what they are trying to tell. At least the Left-Behind movies have a great plot. if you want to see a good movie about the "End-Times" watch those movies.

The acting wasn't bad at all, except for the lead character (this may have been the due to bad direction). The cinematography was not bad, either. Music is good. It's just such a bad plot and/or direction that you never know what's going on! One phrase in the movie says: "You need to connect the dots." For some reason, the makers behind this movie expect the viewers to connect the dots. I'm sorry, that should not be our job! if I wasn't a Christian, I wouldn't have a clue about what this movie is trying to say! Bad movie, don't wast your time on this!

Simple and straightforward: The end just fell flat. Now, if they had built the plot so that we cared about the main character, that would be fine. But, the filmmakers' inability to build suspense is what completely drowned the whole thing.

In her attempt to find her daughter, the main character relies on the help of a variety of people in the U.S. and Israel. None of the actors were at all engaging, and the only one who actually seemed to be able to portray true emotion was the hotel clerk. He may have been my favorite character. The appearance of all the other characters seemed more random than mysterious.

There have been other comments regarding the inaccuracy of how Israel was portrayed in this film. If the settings and the people of the Middle East were maligned by the filmmakers, then that's an even greater shame upon this cinematic waste of time.

You're better off watching re-runs of your favorite TV show that you've seen ten times already than waste your time on this film.