Rapture-Palooza

Just like the predicted Rapture of 2012 (as prophesied by Ronald Weinland of the apocalypticist COG-PKG), end of the world comedy Rapture Palooza proves to be something of a non-event.

Despite a potentially very funny premise, and a promising start (the slo-mo credits sequence is surprisingly stylish), the film is extremely hit and miss, with the majority of gags being misses. Much of the humour relies on smut and profanity, which I have no problem with, but when I fail to find a vagina joke funny, we definitely have a problem!

To make matters worse, the whole production has an air of cheapness about it, particularly the special effects scenes which look like someone knocked them out quickly in After Effects on their iMac (I suspect this may not be far from the truth).

Overall, this is very much like that other terrible rapture themed comedy of 2013, This Is The End, only none of its stars are anywhere near as obnoxious as Seth Rogen.

3/10, plus an extra point for getting Anna Kendrick into that white dress (which distracted me slightly from the dire comedy).

Let me start off by saying there's no need to go see this in the theater. It's Netflix material, for a rainy day or when you want something light and entertaining. The story: the rapture is finally there. Lindsey (Anna Kendrick) and her boyfriend Ben ( John Francis Daley) are non- believers so they remain on earth. The Anti-Christ (Craig Robinson) settles in Seattle (of all places) and wants to have sex with Lindsey. So Ben and Lindsey set up a plan to take him down. In the end God (Ken Jeong) shows up and get's into a fight with the Anti Christ. Owh, will the world survive? Are you enthralled? Probably not. The plot is nothing special. The beginning of the movie is probably the best. Some funny bits. A lot of cursing, vulgar talk, pot smoking sexual remarks etc. Normally I'm all for this, but here it all seemed a bit forced. The end was uncreative, horrible dialogue, uninspired acting. I don't blame the actors, they weren't given much and did the best they could. I love Anna Kendrick and will probably watch anything she's in, but she cannot lift this up to a higher level. She was almost apathetic with the world coming to an end and doing this movie. The white dress looked good on her though... John Francis Daley, well he just gets typecast. Always playing doofy characters, this time is no exception. Robinson making me laugh the most, but the humor isn't sophisticated or anything. I thought the trailer was promising, the setup was promising as if it was going to be like Zombieland or something, which was a great movie. However, I was mildly disappointed. It was entertaining, not hilarious.

There have been a lot of ensemble comedies as of late with a few working and others struggling to find their place. The latest Rapture Palooza brings together a great cast including Anna Kendrick, John Francis Daley, Ken Jeong, Thomas Lennon, Rob Corddry, Craig Robinson, and Tyler Labine to tackle the biblical end of the world, but does it have the story and execution to keep it all together or will it feel like the end of the world trying to get through it?

Rapture Palooza follows a young couple who are forced into a battle with the Antichrist amidst a religious apocalypse with only the help of some pot head teens and an undead neighbor obsessed with mowing his lawn. This movie had everything it needed to work and does entertain for the most part, but somewhere along the way things get a bit cluttered. The first half of the movie is pretty entertaining and fast paced setting up this world, but as it moves forward it goes from clever to almost stupid. Craig Robinson who is normally pretty damn funny seems to be phoning it in at one point and then forcing it the next. He still has some great moments, but just doesn't live up to his normal fun. Anna Kendrick does a great job with her character keeping the goofiness to a minimum while seemingly taking this world seriously. The rest of the cast are hit and miss with a lot of their one-liners somewhat out of place, but a decent amount of them work as well.

This is one of those films that will probably only entertain a select group which is most likely the only people that will check it out anyway. There are some great funny moments and the film does entertain, just not as much as it could have given a little more polish to the script.

The summer of 2013 saw two big Rapture-themed comedies released, This Is the End and The World's End. Well, apparently, Rapture-Palooza was a third, but you probably never heard of it. It was actually released a few days before This Is the End in a few theaters, but it disappeared with little note and ended up on Netflix (is it even on video?). No surprise, really, as it isn't very good. It's not awful, though. Anna Kendrick stars, so it probably couldn't be really terrible. She and John Francis Daley (who played Sam Weir on Freaks and Geeks) star as a dorky young couple who stayed on Earth after the Rapture. Craig Robinson (who also co-starred in This Is the End) plays the Antichrist. When he catches sight of Kendrick, he falls for her, so she and Daley decide to put an end to him. There are actually a good handful of big laughs here, but for every joke that works there are at least two that don't. It seems to fall back on random swearing when things start to slow down (Craig Robinson is particularly disappointing here, since that seems to be his whole schtick). That said, my favorite gag in the movie is probably the foul-mouthed crows. Rob Corddry, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Tyler Labine, Ana Gasteyer, Thomas Lennon, Ken Jeong and John Michael Higgins co-star.

"The people who went to church and prayed and missed out on a lot of fun stuff got sucked straight to heaven. The rest of us, well we're screwed." While out bowling one night Lindsey (Kendrick) and her boyfriend Ben witness the rapture. When they get home they find out that both their moms have been taken while their fathers are still here. Trying to move on with their lives they start a food cart. When that doesn't work they take a job with the anti-Christ (Robinson), but with a hidden agenda. This is a movie I was excited about mainly because of the cast. I have to say that I thought this was very funny and I laughed throughout the whole movie, but it is my kind of humor. Mainly a lot of random things happening and some really stupid jokes that make me laugh like a man getting killed by a huge flaming rock and the wife mad because he was holding the eggs when he died. If that kind of humor appeals to you then watch this and laugh. If you are into more intelligent humor then you may not like this. Overall, a stupid movie that I thought was very funny and I laughed a lot. I give it a B+.