Deceptively marketing itself as an honest low-budget alternative to Harry Potter and Percy Watson, AoCF is nothing more and nothing less than badly acted, horribly paced, amateurishly shot, laughably put-together Christian propaganda. And not even subtle Christian propaganda, a la Narnia; no, this is the type of movie where the two female leads are called Faith and Hope, and where every other sentence reminds us to "keep following what the book tells you", because "it is a good one". No prizes for guessing what book this is...
But even without the sickeningly unsubtle Christian brainwashing (erm, I mean message), Chris Fable would still be a painful viewing experience. How bad is it, you ask? It is worse than the worst movie you can think of. It is worse than Norbit. It is worse than Eraserhead. It makes Batman and Robin look like The Godfather. It out-sucks anything The Asylum ever put out. Heck, it is worse than Plan 9 From Outer Space - and, as movie buffs will certainly know, that is, indeed, saying something.
The overall look and feel of this pathetic excuse for a feature film is that of a glorified high-school play. Imagine someone took that slightly embarrassing taping your Mum made, added some crummy special effects on AfterEffects, then posted it on YouTube for everyone to have a laugh over. Look! There's Mr. Davies the Science teacher in a goofy costume! And Coach Ryan doing a goofy accent! And ha-ha, it's Shawn's little brother in a park ranger costume! Sounds funny, right? Well, yes...until you realise that this is not your high school play, and that someone is actually marketing it as a serious family fantasy film.
The whole thing looks like it was directed by a sixteen-year-old with only the vaguest idea of how to make a movie (you make sure the camera's in focus and, uh, you point it at things, right?). Elements like pacing, narrative cohesion and character development are entirely non-existent, and one doubts the director even knows what "subtlety" and "nuances" mean. Characters are introduced, then literally dropped one scene later, never to resurface (I guess, like good Christians, they wanted to include everybody...) Villains have "BAD GUY" written on their forehead. And not a word from anybody but the protagonist sounds even remotely like something a real person would say in normal conversation - even within a fantasy universe. The 'high-school play' analogy is further helped along by 'actors' who look like they may actually be high-school teachers putting on sub-carnival-kiddie-show performances, each and every one hamming it up for all they are worth for extra cringe points. And the least said about the (not so) 'special' effects, the better - just wait until you see 'Electracity', or the lead villain's 'destroyer robot' (otherwise known as a sub-1950's "metal' suit, with a cardboard box for a head, which shoots bad AfterEffects flames). Somewhere, Chris Bores is using this as evidence to sustain that he is a legitimate film-maker.
All of this would of course be fine, if this movie was explicitly aimed at eight-year-old children, or if it was played for laughs, as a straight out spoof. The problem is, eight-year-old children will be bored to tears with a story where half the time is literally spent watching a teenager walk around some fields, and the whole thing is played with cringe-worthy,morose seriousness. As a result, the movie ends up appealing to absolutely no-one, other than Christians - and, as Sunday School Musical abundantly proved, Christians will watch anything (last Christian joke, Scouts' honour!)
What's even more frustrating is that Chris Fable could have been so much more. Based on a 17th century text, and here and there hinting at something broader and more interesting (Chris does not know what a book is, indicating some sort of apocalyptic future), the film does have a reasonably likable and believable lead, and could, with a little work, be made into an unassuming, watchable family movie. Unfortunately, the ineptitude of all involved ensures that this is never anything but a laughing stock for serious film fans, and an embarrassment for anyone associated with it (including the poor leading kid, which can only dream of an acting career after this). Unless this turns out to actually be an accidentally released Church camp film project, it firmly deserves the title of worst movie of all time.
