The Moment After: The Awakening

I've watched this a couple of times now. Gotta love David A.R. White as an actor, but also a fun plot, solid casting. Best scene is the 'you need to forgive scene'. Isn't that the truth! He's just preachin it up and then gets real.

Christian Movie's shouldn't be going as far as making part 2s, this movie is not as disappointing as when I saw The Encounter part 2, but it is not as good as the first. With both David White and Kevin Downes reprising their roles as Adam Riley and Charles Baker respectively, The Moment After 2 is not that far from the first, it still talks about the events after the rapture this time the makers decided to add a twist ending, in fact two twists.

Like the first the acting is top notch, but the plot loses you in the middle. The length of campfire talks drag and if you are not careful you will sleep off as you wait for the events to happen. The maker's decision to add a little violence into the movie didn't go down well with me. The movie stalls till the final battle but then after the battle I still just wish they didn't do this movie.

Dealing more on the personal struggles after being part of those who chose Christ, this movie shows how each person has to learn to let go and let God, as each character has to deal with his own inner demons.

The movie plot kicks off with former FBI agent Adam Riley (David A.R. White) escaping from death, as a result of a small group of miscreants who wanted to break out their leader.

Adam walks the desert till he comes across other Christians and reunites with his friend and Christian mentor Jacob Krause (Brad Heller). Adam's former partner Charles Baker (Kevin Downes) was sent in to infiltrate the Christian group and help bring them down. Charles succeeds in getting into the Christian group but things changed along the way and we are thrown in the mix of people trying to deal with their personal demons.

The movie does have some other subplots going on, that was meant to be a distraction from the main plot so as to keep the viewer interested. The subplot is about a small group who refuses to get the mark and also refuses to join the Christians, they live their own lives independent of what happens around them, they steal, kill and are ready to go to any length for survival.

Unlike the first which won an award for its evangelical message, this didn't follow suit as the message is lost in the plots and subplots not to add the violence. I won't bother seeing this, just watch the first.

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Following his arrest at the end of the first movie "Adam Riley" (David A.R. White) has since been convicted and sentenced to death. Upon his transfer from prison to the execution site a group of militia members ambush the van which happens to also be carrying their group leader "Captain Robert Jackson (Lonnie Colon) as well. Although the militia members offer to take him with them Adam refuses and decides to go his own way. Not long afterward he winds up in the campsite of Christians led by his former friend, "Jacob Krause" (Brad Heller). But while the Christians welcome Adam whole-heartedly they also recognize the fact that Adam is now a well-recognized fugitive which will only result in increased difficulties for all of them. Anyway, rather than detail the rest of the story I will just say that this sequel was definitely equal to the first movie. It had an excellent story and decent acting all the way around and regardless if one is a fan of this particular genre I think that most people will probably get some enjoyment out of it. Above average.

I'm sorry, but unless you happen to be a right-wing born again Christian, with paranoid tendencies (and/or conspiracy theories) about globalization and the international community, this probably isn't for you. It feels more like massive right-wing religious propaganda than movie entertainment, the acting leaves a tremendous amount to be desired, the characterization leans so heavily on stereotype as to border on the ridiculous, the plot moves along so slowly at times that even the most hardcore of of insomniacs will doze off on the couch and the interpretation of Biblical text (around which the entire plot, such as it is, revolves) is simple-minded in the extreme. I can see that sci-fi might be the only film genre into which this move comes even close to fitting, but it bears little or no resemblance to any of the usual connotations evoked by that "label". There are plenty of pretty good movies out there with Christian and Biblical themes, if that's what you're in the mood for, but this is definitely not one of them.

End times film makers have a field day with movies on the subject because the Bible is so vague on the subject that we've seen several different interpretations, often by the same film makers. The Damon and Affleck of Christian film makers Kevin Downes and David A.R. White have done a sequel to their 1999 film The Moment After with this one, The Awakening.

A lot has happened since that first film when we met Kevin Downes and David A.R. White who are just overloaded FBI agents with missing persons cases and in that film the cause is the biblically anticipated Rapture.

Now things have changed, there is now biblically anticipated global government with implanted computer chips and strict laws now about buying and selling to folks without chips and sellers can only use government sanctioned items. The rest is black market.

White has joined the Christian underground and Downes has been sent to find him. It's rumored White's joined a band led by Brad Heller whom it is alluded to as being a latter day John the Baptist. Christians are underground and persecuted, a whole lot like in Russia where gays have gone underground.

The guy leading the extermination squad is Monte Rex Perlin who really enjoys his work. Why he does is revealed at the end of the film.

Again like other Christian films if you're a believer it's one thing, if you don't buy into it it's another item all together. Whatever I write in a review will be rejected outright by one side or the other.

However I will say this, one of the things that has always annoyed me with fundamentalist Christians is their exaggerated idea of persecution. Forcing a baker in Oregon to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple is the same to them as some real genocidal policies carried out in places like Sudan. They really do think it's the same thing.

Together with that is moves for any kind of internationalism is seen somehow as the work of Satan. Those who believe that will love this film.