Megiddo - Das Ende der Welt

First off, A thriller??? not even.

I took my Youth Group to see this movie and was pleseantly suprise. The first installment 'The Omega Code' made me promise to myself that I would never watch another TBN made movie again.

I broke my promise and had a good time and was entertained.

There were alot of holes in the plot line and alot was expected from the audience to have some preconcieved knowledge of the End Times. While this movie did not have the stunning effects of 'The Matrix', considering it was a Christian funded movie, it was pretty good. I thought the acting was right on level with any other B movie, but lets face it, this movie was made to deliver a message not win any movie awards. The message is Good wins over Evil and when Lucifer had to bow down and declare Jesus is Lord, that was the definition of Good kicking Evil.

This terrible mess of a movie plays like the wet dream of your average American christian fundamentalist. It is about two brothers, one who becomes head of the EU and UN (read Antichrist), the other who becomes president of the good ol' USA and plans to kick his brother's unholy arse (sorry I mean ass) back to hell. Along the way they happen to fall in love with the same woman who is a stunner when she's young, but ends up looking like Cecilia Bartoli as she grows older - well you know what they say about Italian girls and their mothers.

For a film about the Devil and Armageddon, Megiddo is not in the least bit frightening (unlike The Omen, which quite literally put the fear of god into me). Michael York is more annoying than threatening as the wise-cracking Antichrist.

What baffles me is how they were able to get a B-movie cast for this Z-grade turkey - I mean are Michael York and Michael Biehn so hard up for cash that they need to degrade themselves in a film like this? What's worse is that the production values are quite high so there are no crappy special effects to laugh at.

It's not all bad news though. The incomparable Udo Kier plays the part of the Devil's right hand man (who else). R Lee Ermey is a hoot as the straight talking US president and brings back fond memories of his role as the drill sergeant in Full Metal Jacket.

Taking into account it is very hard to sum up prophecies that cover decades of end time into 90 minutes or so, the movie is very well done. Excellent performance by all the key actors. The battle scenes at Megiddo look like the movie came from one of the top regular studios. Could it have been done better? Yes. Could it have been done better at this length? That would be harder.

It's interesting to read some of the comments here since some seem to be the complete opposite of others. I have to tell you that I have see this move 3 times already (once for free and twice I paid to see it). The first two times I saw it there was a lot of reaction during and and at the end of the movie (standing ovation the first two times I saw it) and this last time I saw it there was reaction during the film but no outbursts in the final scenes and no standing ovation (of course there was a smaller audience). There are basically 3 kinds of people who will see this movie: people who understand the book of Revelation (or at least THINK they understand everything that will happen) and will scrutinize this movie based on that, people who have read some of Revelation and understand the basic idea but admit they don't understand what all of it means as far as all the details, and, finally, those people (either Christian or non-Christian) who have no clue about Revelation or what's going to happen and will walk away with questions.

I fall into the second category because I have read Revelation but it's a lot to take in and the movie only covers a small portion of Revelation. There were a couple of questionable moments for me in the movie but the main theme of Megiddo is that God wins the war. It's not about following every single detail in Revelation because face it, we can read Revelation over and over again and still NOT know exactly what will happen exactly in the end except that God wins. That's what the whole movie is about. Most people will not go to a movie and critique every little thing, even most Christians.

I went to see the first Omega Code and it was very dull and boring. After seeing Megiddo I wish they wouldn't have referred to it as Megiddo: The Omega Code 2 because this movie stands on its own. Unlike Omega Code, the acting is great, the special effects are Hollywood-scale, and you really get a small glimpse of what will happen when the beast is defeated. Someone here mentioned about them not showing Satan chained for 1000 years but I imagine that will be in the next movie they make (I don't want to say sequel because I'm hoping they don't lump the next one in with The Omega Code, too). Judging from the way this movie ended that seems logical that they will pick up there.

I recommended this movie to all my Christian friends because I saw what effect it had on the people around me in the theaters I went to and I know how it made me feel and I know if a movie can portray this kind of scene I can only rejoice MORE in knowing that the way it will REALLY be will be even greater. Christian movie-makers are getting better and this is definitely one of the better Christian movies I've seen and it's worthy of being embraced.

Although this movie had it's faults, I find it refreshing from other movies that are filled with bad language and nudity. I find it disturbing that so many of the people who have commented show such a loathing of anything that relates to God. They will find a way to criticize anything that has to do with religion. Yet, they will endure other films with no moral fabric at all without comment. I do hope that TBN will continue to make films -whether they are perfect or not. It's a decent film with decent special effects. The actors did a fine job also. There are a lot of Christians in the United States who will support these films. Another film that was maligned by several but was outstanding was Joshua. If you want a decent film with no nudity nor bad language, view it also.