Rapture-Palooza

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.

With a mediocre title like "Rapture-Palooza" the film cannot be accused of false advertising. With the exception of Anna Kendrick, the cast is peopled with comedic actors of "There's-That-Guy-From- That-Thing"-level renown which is about the right level for the material. You get the gist from the title that the plot amounts to it's the end of days and hilarity ensues. Although some of the proceedings are decidedly not funny including John Michael Higgins being crushed by a falling meteorite as the family looks on, drug- addicts pestering survivors for a hit as they leave their house and the deity of about a billion true-believers being burned to death with a laser as he rides a unicorn. Craig Robinson plays the Antichrist borrowing lines and an outrageous skeeviness from dozens of stand-up comedy routines over the last 30 years. Counter- intuitively his recycled slease-oid is by default the most fully realized character among those not played by Kendrick. Rob Coddry, Ken Jeong, John Francis Daly and others in the cast could have rotated around their interchangeable characters during the filming with little loss of coherence. In particular, Daly could have been replaced with a sock puppet on Kendrick's left hand and it would have played very similarly. As the movie meanders towards its anti- religious? ending, Kendrick inc increasingly comes to dominate the screen-time and brings an earnestness that keeps the movie at least watchable if not entertaining. In short, many better apocalypse films exist - watch one of those.

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.

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.

The movie does not pretend to be something it is not. Some may feel the ending fell flat and/or the actors seemed bored by the childish humor. I believe it was all very intentional.

The blatant absence of political correctness was, in my opinion, incredibly refreshing. Every now and then a good punch in the face is needed to wake up from incessant exposure to overly cautious censorship forced on us by societal standards. Words will only offend if they are allowed to do so.

Those who have a droll sense of humor, enjoy random comedy and do not have a tendency to take everything seriously, will find this entertaining. Then again, perhaps one must be exposed to copious amounts of idiocy and/or eye-rolling ignorance to fully enjoy such a dry, sarcastic treat. Whatever the case, if you can keep an open mind, I would certainly recommend this for a good laugh.